


New Blood

by Gadreely



Category: Hollow Kingdom - Clare B. Dunkle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Female Character of Color, LGBTQ Character of Color
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 07:59:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 38,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1117451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gadreely/pseuds/Gadreely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in modern times, three American teenagers come to Hollow Hill, a village near Coventry, while their father works in London. The housekeeper promises to keep an eye on them. As they notice strange things happening in the town, they hear stories of goblins and elves. Could this be why the housekeeper's daughter (and everyone else's) aren't allowed out after night?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hollow Hill

**Author's Note:**

> You do not need to have read the book series to understand the fanfiction. It contains none of the characters from the original book (as they would all be dead by this time). This mostly goes from the first book, based on Kate's original story.

We hit a bump in the road right after we turned off the deserted highway onto a cobblestone driveway that probably had seen more horse hooves in the past year than it had car tires in the last 20 before. For an American, the whole thing seemed very quintessentially English. The cobblestone path (though, admittedly, there were parts of my town that still had the rickety stones not yet torn and replaced with the smoother pavement), the accent of our taxi driver, and the little brown fence that lined the rolling green grasses of the massive property.

My suitcase (one of many, and this one had not fit into the tiny trunk of the taxicab) bounced in my lap, trying to jump up from my knees and hit me in the face. It was held down only by my arm as we drove down the path. My brother's elbow dug into my side, and I suspected he knew about it.

"How much farther?" my father said from the passenger seat. However long I spent in England, I would never get used to their driver's side being on the right side of the car. (There were many things that I could admit England had gotten "right" over America- such as the metric system and d/m/y time formula- but I would never give in on the way we drove, nor the thing with the u's).

"A few minutes. sir," the driver said. I was still admittedly suspicious of taxi drivers ever since Season 1 of Sherlock. They didn't really have taxi's where I lived, and the idea was something I thought was reserved for quaint British farm drives (a la C. S. Lewis) and the bustling cities of London or New York.

"I see the lake!" my best friend Frances yelled. She was loud all the time. Her whisper voice was like what a normal-person's "inside voice" should be. She pressed her face to the window, though I could see it emerging just fine from where I was seated.

"Hollow Lake", I told her, having done some minor research into the place before coming here.

"Hallow Lake, you mean?" she said, turning to give me a slightly-sarcastic-but-perfectly-done eyebrow. (Frances was all things the stuff of men's Asian fantasies, with the ridiculous added bonus of being a tall Chinese woman. She had several inches on my short 5'3" stature).

The lake appeared fully in the window as she drove along its shore. I put a hand on Frances' shoulder and pushed her back into the seat so I could look at it better. It was surrounded, like the rest of the lands besides the initial grassy hills that were begging for a sheep farm or something equally British, by heavily forested lands. They would be fun to roam around in and take pictures, I thought to myself, thinking of my blog. On the other side was a small village that looked like it had been frozen in the 19th century.

"Hollow," I repeated, finally coming back to what she had said after my short inner monologue.

"You sure?" she said, still sounding incredulous of my information.

"Yes, Frances. I did my research." I rolled my eyes.

"How can a lake be hollow?" she said, though more of a mocking way then actually inquisitive.

"I don't know. But it's definitely Hollow Lake", I said.

"It's Hollow Lake," the taxi driver piped up.

"See?" I said to her, resisting the urge to stick my tongue out.

"How can a lake be hollow?" she asked again.

"Don't know, miss." He paused for a moment before saying, "Local lore says it's where the goblin's live."

"Goblins?" we asked at the same time.

"Don't go out after dark, they say," he said, then went silent as we pulled up to the front of the guest house.

Goblins. How very British.


	2. The Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter goes more into depth about why they are in England and their family situation.

The house where we were staying was not the biggest on the property. That house was owned by the family, and looked impressively Victorian. When we had passed by it in the taxi, I had seen the massive, geometric gardens that reminded me of the garden's so often described in the Royal Gardens. This was called The Hall, or so the housekeeper told us as she greeted us in front of where we would spend our three weeks of residence.

"This we call "The Lodge"," she said, sweeping her hand at the square house. It was three stories (the top was a dormer, admittedly) and symmetrical on either side of the door, with tall windows to its sides. The thick shade of a trees draped over the house, casting a dappled shadow over the walkway that. One side of the house was all meadows, leading into forests and hills.

"The house is all original furniture, much to the look when it was built in the early 19th century," the housekeeper said as we walking in the front door. "The dining room and kitchens are on your right. the parlor is on your left."  
Parlor. I smiled at the word.

It was a clean and tidy room. The walls were a soft greenish color that somehow didn't remind me of puke, but more like mint ice cream- it felt instantly calm when I walked in. There were cushioned chairs and a couch, all decorated in green, white, and blue. Gauzy white curtains over the windows finished off the look.

"There are four rooms, two on either side. You can take your pick of the two on the right. The dormer upstairs would be nice for the young man. Bathroom is in the end of the hallway," she said. I wandered into a room once we were inside, seeing it decorated in a soft rose color.  
I put my bag on the bed, then flopped down unceremoniously onto the lush covers and buried myself for a moment in the luxury. "I pick this one!" I called out, mostly to Frances, who was already protesting.

I covered my head with a pillow and waited until she pouted off into the other room before rolling onto my back and sitting up to explore my room. The room was mostly taken up by the large, four-poster bed that had the heavy, fancy curtains to pull across. Opposite the bed was a large silver mirror, one begging for a set of silver combs (although I lacked the featherly blonde hair. My springy black curls would never be tamed with the soft natural fibers). A barely-cushioned bench was placed in front of it. More of the gauzy white curtains were covering the windows, though thicker curtains were pulled off to the sides for more covering.

My father knocked on the door and poked his head in. "I brought you bags in. Go ahead and unpack. Want to go to the Hall for lunch? I'm starving."

"Me, too," I groaned. I hadn't eaten since the airplane, When he disappeared, I drug my several suitcases in, heaved them up onto the bed, and threw open the doors of the wardrobe.

"Check for Narnia while you're in there," Frances said, flopping down on my bed in the same fashion that I had. I hadn't heard her come in, and I jumped around.

"Frances!" I said, stopping myself before I could squeal. I threw a dress at her, turning my back on her in embarrassment. "Don't you have your own clothes to put away?" I asked her.

"My clothes would rather the suitcase or the back of chairs," she answered.

"The floor, more like," I said. Although she always dressed nice, her clothes were perpetually strewn about her room.  
"Let's go!" my father yelled from downstairs. We had limited room.

Jensen, my brother, was already downstairs, hands shoved into his pockets. He was a year younger than me, only 16, but looking much better than I had been as a summer-before-Junior-year High school student (he was a wrestler, which accounted for the ridiculous physique that he had starved and lifted for).

Frances bounced down the stairs after me. I put on my boots at the door and then my jacket. It only got around 60 degrees here even in the summer, and that was fine with me. 70 was getting uncomfortably warm in the dreary Pacific Northwest cities. I would take the 45 degrees outside with a scarf instead of dying of heat exhaustion any day.

The end of my friend's scarf hit me in the face as she dramatically threw it over her shoulder. My father rolled his eyes (a trait my brother and I had both picked up) and started to walk down the path. It was a little less than a mile to the Hall, but I enjoyed the walk. After being cooped up in an airplane and then in that cab, I wanted nothing more than to put on my running shorts and take off into the trails.

We were quiet on our way there, even Frances. The phones didn't work (more like, my father didn't want to pay for the expensive coverage here for us), so we were cut off from the rest of the world until we could retreat into our heaven of wifi back in the Lodge.

As we approached, I looked over at the gardens. They were nice, I supposed, in a sunny-walk-with-a-parasol sort of way, but I had never been fond of taking nature and confining it into such fake shapes. I wanted the deciduous trees and dirt and rocky paths, not manicured lawns and trimmed fruit trees with pebble-lined fountains.

Inside of the Hall, we were greeted with the housekeeper. She smiled at us, ushering us into the formal dining room. It could hold a dozen people at least, I was sure, but she set us up at the end of one side of the table.

"Lunch will be out in just a few minutes. I made lemonade, if anyone would like a cup?" she asked.

We all nodded in thankfulness, and a minute later, a pitcher was placed in the center of our area. I took a glass and sipped on it. Lunch was sandwiches (nothing too English, and I was not disappointed. I liked my American food).

When we were done, we wondered the entryway, looking at the pictures on the walls and the intricate furniture, unable to control our curiosity and wondering when we would be ushered out for being rude. I looked up a few minutes later to see a teenage girl standing in the parlor. "Oh!" I said, and the party looked up guitily, falling back with abashed looks on their faces.

"No, you're fine," she said, laughing. "It's not my house. The owners are out of town for Christmas."

"This is my daughter, Kassidy," the housekeeper said, appearing in the doorway. I noticed her noticing my brother and him noticing her as well.

We said our hello's, then my father asked "Where was this photo taken, if I can ask?" He pointed to a framed photo of two girls hand in hand.  
"If you follow the path behind the house- well, it's actually a complicated little path- but you can find a big circle meadow, surrounded by trees. Locals say it was druidic, but that doesn't mean much," Kassidy said.

"Great stargazing at night," the housekeeper said, her voice sounding weird (a bit too forceful?).

Kassidy snorted. "You won't even let me out of the house after dark, and you're recommending they go stargazing in the druid circle?"

"Hush, now," her mother said, giving a smile before turning a deadly look on the daughter. "Great paths for jogging, if that's what you fancy."  
I nodded and Frances rolled her eyes.

We thanked her and started our way down the stairs. Kassidy followed us out. "Is there a reason why your mother doesn't let your out after dark?" I asked her.

"It's a town tradition, I suppose. No one goes outside after dark, especially the older girls."

"That's weird," Frances piped in.

"Tell me about it. I think they still believe in the old stories around her. I try to tell her she's being overprotective, but I don't step a foot outside come nightfall unless I want my butt handed to me."

"Old stories?" I asked.

"Old town stuff. Goblins, elves, the works, you know?"

After lunch, before it was going to get dark, my father said his goodbyes to me and my brother. Our mother died a few years prior, leaving us as a tag team with one member down. My father's job required him to travel. Sometimes we ended up in places like Australia, but this time we ended up in a little village not far from Coventry.

"How long until you're back?" I asked him after he released his arms from our hug.

"A week, at least," he sighed, running his hand through his hair. Before my mother died, there had never been any gray in it. Taking care of the two of us on his own and dealing with the loss of someone so awe-some as my mother had aged him quickly. I would be off to college next year, and my brother the year after that, though I knew the pain of losing us to a university somewhere would be more painful than the stress of raising two kids on your own.

Our mother's brother (so, our uncle, obviously) owned the Lodge house. I had never gotten along with him too well (I found him kind of shady, and even our mother never brought us around him except a few awkward holiday dinners). But when my dad was off to London for business, he offered us to stay there.

The Housekeeper lived in a room downstairs, and she would take care of us. She even had a teenage daughter the same age (my father said this like it was an added bonus, but I wasn't so sure). So we brought along my best friend Katie (Jensen hadn't been able to get anyone to come along, as it was the middle of wrestling season, and his coaches were already going to kill him for missing so much of the season).

My father and brother hugged each other (my brother was a poster boy for the perpetually emotionless, but he always hugged my father. After losing our mother, we never let a time to say a proper goodbye go to waste).

The cab pulled up next to us, shutting down the tears that would form if we played this out. We were always anxious to be away from each other. My father cleared his throat, clapped my brother on the shoulder and said, "take care of your sister."

I smiled, saying, "hey, I'm the older one!" He smiled at me, put his back back into the trunk of the cab that had broughten him here only hours before, and got into the backseat. We stood silently, watching the cloud of dust from the kicked up dirt, waiting until it was a little dot on the horizon before turning around and going back inside.


	3. Trip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josephine goes out for a run.

As a habitual runner, I prefered to run in running shorts, but as I could see my breath and the sun hadn't even gone down yet, I decided that my running pants might be a better option. The humid night air- a storm looked to be coming in- suffocated my room. I forced up my lead-painted single-pane window. 

Sitting on the couch downstairs was Frances and Kassidy, talking to each other. Kassidy was also very pretty, and I wondered if her mother (who reminded me of a Spanish version of Aunt Petunia from Harry Potter) had looked like that at as a teenager. She had shiny black hair, which had to reach at least her waist. Her skin was lightly tanned, favoring more towards the coloring of Frances' skin than mine (it perpetually annoyed Frances that we couldn't share make-up with me being so much darker than her).

Jensen was sprawled out in a recliner, laptop on his lap as he lazily scrolled through the page with one finger on the trackpad. He barely looked up at me. "Going on for a run?" he said, putting as much enthusiasm in his voice as he could for his scrolling.

"It's getting dark out there," Kassidy said, looking a bit cautious.

"The sun hasn't even started to go down yet. I won't be out long," I promised. "I'll jog straight and come back. I won't get lost."

"Like you didn't get lost in Disney Land?" Frances said with a smirk. She had never let me live down the time as a kid I had gotten lost in the amusement park. My father had found me a half hour later in the security office, eating a popsicle.

"That was one time," I said defensively. "If you hadn't left me for the teacups."

"I was nine."

"So was I!" I said.

"Children," Jensen said, drawing out the word.

"Whatever," I said.

I left the house. It felt weird to not lock the door behind me, but people here "didn't even lock their doors," my father had said of its safety when we were driving here.

I figured I had less than an hour before the sun went down and it got completely dark. It wouldn't be wise to stay out on foreign lands where I had never been, common sense told me. But as the music of my ipod drummed in my ears and the path disappeared under my feet, I lost track of the time.

It was a few minutes after I ate the ground that I realized how dark it was actually. To be fair, it wasn't my clumsiness that caused it (well, at least I didn't trip over a root or anything). I hadn't been paying attention to the ground beneath my feet. My shoes hit a patch of rocks, and I lost my footing. I put up my arms, trying to block my fall, but I still landed face-first on a rock (this I could attribute to my clumsiness).

"Shit," I said, pinching my nose tenderly and rolling onto my back. My nose bled pretty easily, and I had just given it good cause. I pushed myself up with the other hand and took a moment to breathe before assessing the damage.

"Ugh," I said aloud, although there was no one around to hear me say it. "Not my new running pants." I poked at the skin showing through the rip in my spandex pants (this was a bad idea as I seemed to have shredded both my skin and my new pants). Forgetting about my pants as the headache started in, I leaned forward, trying to keep the blood from traveling down my throat.

It was then that I realized it was dark. It was like a light switched had been flipped. The last vestiges of the sun's rays were quickly disappearing; the small path faded into the darkness as I looked behind me to where I was running from.

"Hopefully this is as safe a village as they say it is," I whispered to myself as I stood up. Blood poured from my nose as I released my grip on it. When it was through, I lifted up the edge of my spandex shirt and wiped the blood that was all over my face. Cold air hit my stomach, chilling me.

I sighed as I saw the blood bright against the yellow fabric. If I got back quick enough, I could probably wash the blood out. The blood coming from my knee was warm and sticky against my leg, dripping onto my sneakers.

While I walked back, I became aware of the skimpiness of my outfit. Short sleeves left almost all of my arms exposed to the cold. Although there were goosebumps on my arms, it wasn't from the cold. I had the eerie feeling that someone was watching me. I looked into the dark forest, but there wasn't much I could see. I really didn't want to die in the middle of some path in England just because I had wanted to run.  
I prodded the area around my nose, already feeling the swelling. I would probably wake up two black eyes. I had never had one, and I wondered how it would show up on my skin and how much makeup I would need to cover it up (I couldn't recall ever seeing another black person with a black eye, once I tried to think about it).

Every step pulled against my wound, but after a few minutes, the whole area felt alit with pain. I could handle the pain being spread out, and I was just thankful that it wasn't the searing feeling of tugging at broken flesh.

Relief flooded through me, washing away the fatigue that had set in in the forever that I had been walking. That relief lasted all the way until I went to open the front door and found it to be...locked? I tried to twist the doorknob, but the metal knob was unforgiving in my hand. I knocked and knocked and knocked some more, but there was no one to be hearing me, apparently.

"Oh, come on," I said, resting my forehead sadly on the door. My nose was really starting to throb, and I was freezing. So much for "we never even lock the doors"! I checked under the mats and potted plants, and even checked for fake rocks, but there was no hidden key.

The plan that came to mind finally after minutes of me standing dumbfounded on the door was not one that I relished to do. Circling the house, I came around to my side. Now-dead roses intertwined the spaces of the white-washed trellis attached to the side of the house. A breeze flapped the edges of the lace curtains outside, and I could see that my window was still open. Could I fit through that tiny opening?

I put one foot in a section of the trellis and shook it firmly. It seemed like it would hold my weight, but was I willing to test it? Aforementioned breeze made the decision for me as it cut at my bloody knee and bare arms.

"I'm going to break an arm," I told myself as I took a step up. Luckily I wasn't afraid of heights. It felt sturdy enough under my weight, but this thing was made from cheap wood (I didn't think that the housekeeper would take to it quite nice if I broke her trellis, though it was her fault for locking me out!). And so it was that I climbed my way to the second story, all without falling down or breaking free from the wall (I was glad for the lack of neighbors, as I sure looked like a criminal climbing the side of the house in the middle of the night).

The trickier part was fitting through the window. It was barely big enough for me to fit my head through. The corner edges of the trellis stuck up about an inch into the space, meaning I would have to drag my body across them to get in. I certainly wasn't going to turn back now, however."

I stuck my head in and grabbed onto the edge of the wardrobe. Using it, I shimmied myself inside enough until I could double over and awkwardly roll inside. I lay on the floor for a few minutes, feeling a mixture of tired, angry, and admittedly a little bit proud.

Half of me really wanted to just fall asleep right there on the floor, but my sense of pride made me get up. I went into the bathroom, noticing that everyone's door's were closed. Had they all fallen asleep on me? What time was it?

Water stung my knee as I washed out the dirt. It would be a pretty big scab in the morning, for sure. The blood on my face wasn't that bad, but I did strip off my shirt and scrub as much out as I could. I left it to dry over the shower curtain before returning to my room, in only my sports bra and underwear.

I froze with my hands mid-air as I went to toss my now-ruined pants over the edge of the chair. All the hair stood up on the back of my neck; someone was watching me. I turned slowly to survey the room, afraid that I would find what I felt was there. But when I did a full search, I found nothing (there weren't even any monsters under my bed, and I check for sure).

Deciding that I was just being paranoid, I closed my window (it had been stupid to open my window because now it was like an ice box in here) and shut the heavy curtains suspiciously. Once I was in my pajamas, I crawled under the blankets, covered my head with them, and tried to sleep.

That was easier said than done, however. I woke up several times during the night, after having horrible nightmares, but as soon as I opened my eyes, I couldn't remember a thing about them. I woke up the next morning drenched in sweat. Pushing the blankets away, I sat up and stretched, then rubbed the goosebumps away that had formed on my bare legs from the cold air.

A second later, I froze. I stabbed at my knees with my finger, not believing what I was seeing- or rather, not seeing. There was nothing there. I had torn my knee to shreds, but now there was no evidence. Perfect brown skin on my palms, too. I touched my nose, but it didn't feel sore. How could this be? An eerie feeling settled in the pit of my stomach.  
But I had destroyed my pants, I reminded myself. The shirt would have blood on it. I snatched the pants from the back of the chair, but there was no hole there (not even any dirt). It looked like I hadn't even worn them at all.

I dashed out of my room, running the small space to the bathroom. I barged in, where my brother was washing his teeth. "Hey!" he said through the toothpaste. "I'm in here, you know."

"Shut up, Jensen," I said, grabbing the bright yellow shirt that was hung over the shower rod. "Did you touch these?" I asked. There was no blood on it. It was even dry. I must have looked a bit crazy (surely my hair was doing its bedhead thing).

"No?" he said, and the look he gave me confirmed my belief.

"Was this here when you came in?" I asked.

He spit out the toothpaste. "Josephine, I didn't touch your freaking shirt, jesus."

"This was dirty when I put it here last night."

"Maybe the housekeeper washed it," he said with a shrug. Then he slapped me over the head.

"What the hell was that for?" I rubbed the sore spot on my head.

"For staying out so late," he said angrily.

"I wasn't gone that long," I protested.

"I went to bed at midnight, and I would have heard you come in," he said.

"Midnight? I wasn't gone that long."

"Sure were. Scared the shit out of me. I woulda come look for you if I thought I could have found you without getting lost myself," Frances said, appearing in our doorway. She was still in her pajamas pants and a Doctor Who shirt.

"I was not out until midnight, and besides that, I had to crawl up the freaking trellis last night just to get in. Thanks to whoever locked all the doors," I said.

"You climbed up the trellis?" my brother said.

"Yup."

He smirked briefly, then pushed me out of the bathroom.

"This doesn't solve the mystery!" I said.

"What mystery?" I heard Kassidy say as she poked her head out of her room. "Glad you're not dead, by the way."

I held up my shirt, as if this would prove anything to them. "When I was running last night, I tripped and skinned my knee and my nose started bleeding."

"That's not a mystery. You're just clumsy," my brother said.

I ignored him as I continued. "I ripped a hole in my running pants, and there was blood all over this shirt. Plus I had a bloody knee." I lifted said knee and pointed at it. "Now there is nothing."

"Maybe you heal quick," Kassidy said.

"Probably didn't trip as bad as ya thought," Frances said.

"But this shirt is clean. My pants don't have a hole in them," I insisted. I was not being foolish, I knew.

"Maybe my mom washed them?" Kassidy said.

"Probably imagined it," Jensen said.

"Oh, shut up," I said. I groaned and turned away. "Don't believe me. Whatever."


	4. Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kassidy leads Joey and Frances on an outing of the town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew. If you're reading this after that very long hiatus, I apologize. The rest is basically written, save for this chapter and one or two after it, and a large portion of a story that follows this one.

I woke up for the fourth night in a row in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. Pushing back the covers, I sat up on the edge of the bed and rubbed my face. Four days now- four days that I woke up feeling like I hadn't slept at all. I had definitely slept, because I could remember the nightmares and feel the shadows of fingernails pressing into my arms.  
I stood up and pulled one arm across my chest to stretch. In just my tank top and shorts, it was a bit cold in the room. The duvet had been shoved off to the side, laying mostly on the floor.  
I turned on the lamp at the bed side table before crossing the room to the mirror and desk. My make-up bag was sitting on the little table. I sat down on the cushioned bench and tucked my feet underneath my legs. Sighing again, I unzipped the bag and pulled out two orange bottles. I put them down on the table and set the bag aside. Uncapping the water bottle that was shoved in the corner, I moved it closer to me, then took out my pills and swallowed them with a mouth full of water.  
I pulled my hair out of the ponytail and ran my fingers through my hair, separating out the curls. Knots were entangling most of my hair, so I gave up on the endeavor. It looked a little like a rats nest mixed with a bizarre afro in the mirror.  
In the dim light through the gauzy curtains, I could see the the jagged pale marks on my skin, raised enough that I could run my fingers across it and feel the bumps. When they were first healing, they had looked kinda like lightning bolts, but now they looked like what they really were: just thick lines made from lots of very sharp broken glass.  
The scarring was so bad that I hadn't worn anything showing it off since the incident. They extended over my shoulder and down a ways towards my breast, with a few lines that were visible on my neck in everything other than a turtleneck. It was easier this way, too. People didn't ask me about it. People at school, around town, always looked at my shoulder, trying to see the aftermath. I didn't want to think about it, and I certainly didn't want to talk about it.  
When the summer months came, I didn't know what I would do. Shorts and a sweater never looked too good together.  
I wandered downstairs, already hungry, with a book under my arm. I had just started reading Divergent, much to Frances' anticipation. She was about half way done with it, but I was still in the middle of another book that I had read a dozen times.  
I put my hair into a messy bun, a few curls escaping and I shoved them behind my ear. I took out an apple, a knife, and a plate and went outside onto the back porch.  
I dug the knife into the apple in my hands, something that I had done a hundred times before, as I watched the sun start to rise. It was cold here, colder than it was in Washington, and I wished that I had put on a pair of sweats. My tank top wasn't much coverage, but I was too lazy to go back upstairs and change.  
I sliced the apple into halves, taking my time eating them while I sat on the steps, reading the book. I was pretty sure that I could never jump off of a moving train, no matter how much I wanted to join a faction.  
I was just getting to a good part in the book when Kassidy opened the small curtains on the other side of the glass window in the door. She opened the door, stepping out with bare feet to the porch.  
"You're up early," she said, stretching an arm over her chest.  
"Couldn't sleep," I said. I folded the corner of the page and put the book down. Frances always said she wanted to strangle me when I folded the corner of a page, and I used to agree with her, but it was a book. It wasn't sacred. I could buy a thousand more copies.  
"It's kinda cold out here," she said. "You want a blanket?"  
"Nah. I'm coming in right now." I stood up, mimicking her stretch as I picked up my stuff.  
It wasn't until a few hours later that Frances woke up.  
"Where's your mom?" Frances said to Kassidy when she came downstairs.  
"She's at the Lodge." Kassidy rolled her eyes. "I'm glad you're here. This way I don't have to clean."  
"Ohhh, that's lucky. We should do something," Frances said, looking at me with the look on her face that told me I was not getting out of anything that she was planning.  
"What's lucky?" Jensen said as he came down the stairs. He was in sweats, his hands shoved in his pockets.  
"Kassidy gets out of cleaning because we're here," I said.  
He nodded, not saying anything as he went into the fridge and shuffled stuff around.  
"I'm making eggs if anyone wants some," he said, pulling out a carton.  
"Hand me the egg box," Kassidy said, then took it from his hand and put it on the counter. Kassidy made eggs and Jensen shoved pieces of bread into a toaster.  
While we were eating, Frances brought back up the topic of what we should do for the day. "Is there a library here?" she asked. "I want to go swimming in the lake, but it's so cold."  
"Of course we have a library. We're not that small of a town. We've got little stores. The Americans really enjoy the little English town feel," Kassidy said. "Get a cuppa, read a book, talk to some superstitious locals. Whole thing. We're here to please."  
It was about two miles to the Lodge and a mile to the town, Kassidy told us after breakfast. In the garage, there were three bikes. We looked around at each other, trying to decide who had to ride on the back of the pegs. Frances ended up hanging onto Jensen, since we trusted him over the rest of us to make it there safely with a passenger. It was luckily a relatively flat ride and the roads there were mostly paved or a smooth dirt surface.  
At the beginning of the little strip mall- if I could aptly call a collection of old-style business in a row that- was a coffee shop. We dumped our bikes on the side, Kassidy waving her hand at us when we asked if we should lock them up.  
"Not a lot of teenagers here to steal your stuff," she said. We followed her inside to the place just called "Cuppa". It wasn't a large building, but did make my inner Seattlite hipster feel comfortable. Their coffees weren't anything close to Starbucks, but I took my simple coffee with three sugars and three creamers and sat down on a couch, feeling at home.  
"There really isn't a lot of teenagers here. You weren't lying," Frances said. There were a few adults and people in their twenties, but no one around our age.  
"Everyone here goes to a boarding school. There are a few boys who go up to a school not too far, but all the girls are sent away. It's pretty lonely here during the school year if you're around," she said.  
"Why?" I asked.  
She shrugged. "Parents want the best education, I guess. They're paranoid, too. It's kind of embarrassing."  
"Paranoid about what?" Jensen said, looking up from the newspaper that he had swiped from a nearby table.  
"Girls go missing every so often. The adults treat it like the town's in its own horror movie, but I'm sure most of them just ran off," Kassidy said.  
"That's not that uncommon," I said.  
"We haven't had a murder in 50 years or something like that. A few cases of spousal abuse, a few brawls. Our random disappearances is the only thing going for us. Not sure if they're really concerned or they just created a local lore to entertain the visitors, honestly," she said.  
"Is that the goblin thing we heard about in the taxi?" Frances said half to me, half to Kassidy, smiling.  
Kassidy groaned. "I could puke if I hear another thing about goblins. There's a whole book on it. A website, too. Talk to any of the real old women who look like they're casted for a creepy-clairvoyance movie role, and they'll tell you all about it."  
Frances and I looked at each other. We were here to have fun, and this sounded kinda fun.  
"So library, bookstore, tea? Wha'dya want to do?" she said, eager to change the subject.  
"Bookstore!" we said together. The only thing better than a library was a bookstore. Something about the possibility of owning all of those books was better than free books.  
"You guys have fun at that. I think I'll wonder around on my own," he said.  
"Awww," Frances said. "Too cool for your older sister and best friend?"  
"I've got to do some exercise," he said. He was dropping weight for wrestling, which I could tell because he had taken water instead of a coffee.  
"Go running with Joey," she said.  
"I'm too fast for him," I said.  
"I could pass you twice before you finished a lap around the lake," he said.  
"Maybe once, but certainly not twice," I said.  
He stood up, picking up his cup. "Meet me back at the bikes in two hours?" he said, glancing at his watch. I looked down at mine. Our phones didn't work here, so we didn't even bother to carry them around.  
We agreed and set off on our separate ways.  
"Is there internet at the library?" I asked.  
"The stationary computers have internet, but no wifi, I'm afraid. We've not progressed that much. I do miss the wifi at school," Kassidy said.  
"I'll take anything at this point," Frances said. "Even I can't read all day long. I have a blog to run," she said.  
"I'm surprised that you're not photoing everything in sight just to post," I said.  
"I should have brought my camera," she said. She looked at me like she was mad that I had even brought it up.  
The streets were mostly empty, since it was the middle of the week on an afternoon. The tourist season was probably closer to Christmas or Thanksgiving, which wasn't for a few weeks yet.  
"Is there a hotel here?" I asked, just curious to all that was in this town.  
"Yup. It's pretty old, if you'd like to see that, too," Kassidy said. "If you're here at thanksgiving, the hotel does a big dinner thing. But they usually have free cookies."  
"I'd definitely like to see it," Frances said. We headed down the sidewalk, getting to the little bookstore.  
It smelled heavily of incense and was only sightly brighter than an Abercrombie store.  
Inside, I didn't see anyone else. The counter was covered in stacks of books, but there was no one sitting behind it. Kassidy started to wander around, running her fingers over book covers. She hummed to herself, picking up books to see if there was anything new.  
"They really pulled out all the tourist trap stops," Frances said to me. There was a doorway covered by a thin sarong and beads hanging from the top of the door. "I'd like to get something to bring back down to America," she said.  
"Nothing too big, since you already had to vacuum-seal everything because you're an over-packer," I teased her.  
"I'd rather be well prepared for everything than not be prepared for something. Don't be jealous when a snowstorm hits and I've got the goods to survive. You'll be left in your jeans and You Me At Six crew neck," she said.  
"Don't hate on my music," I said, looking down at my sweater fondly.  
The quiet sound of jingling beads made us look up from our conversation. Someone came out of the back room. She was an old woman, wearing a long maxi skirt and so many bangles on her wrists that she clicked every time she moved.  
"Hello Ms. Baker," Kassidy said, then looked over at us with an eyebrow and a nod. This was the old woman archetype she had been referencing at the coffee shop.  
"Surprised to see you out and about, Kassidy," she said, settling herself down on a chair behind the counter. There was a little yellow Lucky Cat thing next to where a collection of pens were. She looked over at us. "With visitors, I see."  
"Yeah. This is Frances and Josephine. Joey's uncle owns The Hall, so they're staying with us for a few weeks." We smiled at her when Kassidy said our names and told her that we were happy to meet her.  
"I bet your mother's overjoyed," she said, which confused me. She didn't sound sarcastic, but not truthful either. She wouldn't be happy or mad that we were there, I wouldn't think. She seemed to like us all just fine.  
"She's not so strict on me when they're around," Kassidy said with a smile. "She lets them out of the house just fine."  
"I bet she does," Ms. Baker said. "Bet she's just peachy to have two more lovely girls in the house."  
Kassidy rolled her eyes. "Better they get kidnapped than me," she said. "I know you're thinking it."  
Ms. Baker tsked. "Don't believe me. That's your own business. Maybe these girls'll listen to me," she said, eyeing us.  
"Joey's already gone out at night. Too late for them, I'm afraid," Kassidy said.  
She shook her head, looking at me. "Best not to let them catch sight of you at all."  
I laughed, unable to control myself. "Aren't we talking about goblins? Like little bank-tellers and under-the-bridge toll collectors? Surely, Ms. Baker, you don't actually believe this. You can spare me the tourist-mystique facade."  
"Under the bridge is trolls," Frances said, skimming through a book. "Fremont Troll."  
"Don't believe me. I didn't believe it either 'til they took my sister. No one's a believer until it's too late," the old woman said. She held out a thin book. "Take the book. I won't even charge you for it as long as you try not to be foolish".


	5. Polar Bear Plunge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introduces the mother and back story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't like the sob story overly much, but because of the way other scenes are written, it has become impossible to disentangle. If you're not a fan of it, I don't blame you. Bear with me if you find it annoying. Otherwise, enjoy it as character development.

The day we brought mom home from treatment, I was in charge of watching her. She was enough medications that she wasn't more than a zombie. Jensen had made this comment under his breath as we had picked her up, and my father had said bitterly in response, "better drugged than dead."

I wasn't sure if I thought this was true.

The pills made her sleepy, so when we got home and she wanted to go right home, I didn't think anything of it. It had been months since she had truly been mom. Her best friend had died of a quick-infiltrating breast cancer about 6 months ago, and mom had never recovered. She'd spent time in and out of psychiatric hospitals- and that was before we caught on to the ways she had been dulling her pain before that. The drugs that she had been doctor hopping for had kept her drugged enough to keep going.

About two months before, everything had come crashing down when I had found the pills hidden after trying to clean up the room a bit. Father had been working more, trying to cover the bills. Her job had paid for treatment in the beginning, but they had given up hope on her. Father's insurance barely covered us enough to get by. I had gotten a job to make ends meet. Jensen was still too young and he had other things going on.

"Watch your mother," my father had said, kissing me on the forehead before leaving for work. Jensen had left for wrestling practice, leaving me to flit about the house, cleaning up the disheveled mess that had become our home in the past few months.

A few hours later, I hadn't heard anything from her. I wandered upstairs, deciding that I should probably make dinner if she was hungry. I didn't feel like eating, but the doctor had said to make sure she kept eating, because the pills would make her not feel hungry.

I knocked on the door, but she didn't answer. I opened the door slowly, not wanting to wake her if she was asleep. There was no one in the bed, but the bathroom light was on. It was partially askew. I walked towards it, starting to feel a bit apprehensive.

"Mom?" I said aloud, hoping that she would answer me.

I pushed the door open with two fingers but there was no one in there either. I looked to my right towards the closet slowly, starting to panic. My feet stuck to the tile floor with every step that I took.

"Mommy?" I said. I nudged the door open.

I was screaming before I even registered what I saw.

The sun was maybe an hour away from fully rising over the horizon when I awoke. It had been one of many nightmares so far this week. Most of them weren't about my mother, though. I lay there for a few minutes. Before they would leave me in a cold sweat, sometimes a panic attack, but this was more of a memory than a nightmare. Maybe I was getting used to them. I hoped it was just the cold room or the new environment that was sparking so many in such a short time.

I hugged my bathrobe around my shoulders I left the room. Frances' room was right next to mine.

I opened her door, not bothering to knock. She was laying on her stomach, one arm over the side of the bed. I crept over to her, careful not to wake her up, then jumped onto her bed, landing right next to her. She jumped with a little scream, rolling onto her back and getting to her knees. I smiled at her as it took her a few seconds to wake up.

"Good morning," I said.

She stared at me, mouth in a thin line. "Good morning, Josephine."

"It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, Frances. Time to get up."

She looked over at her curtained window. "Is it even legal to call it 'day' right now?" she said.

"You said you wanted to go swimming. Let's go swimming," I said. "Nice way to wake up."

"You want to go skinny dipping before the sun even rises?" She perked up a bit at this prospect.

"I didn't say anything about skinny dipping. But a nice polar bear plunge-esque dunk, sure."

"You've never even done the Polar Bear Plunge," she said.

"Now's a great time to start. Get up. You'll thank me later," I said.

"I'll be ready in 5 minutes. Let me get my swimming suit on." She jumped up, already on her way to her dresser. I was already starting to regret my decision.

I left her room and went back to mine. I grabbed a duffel bag and put in it a towel and my bathrobe, just in case. After putting on my suit, I put on a pair of sweats and a sweatshirt.

"Let's go," Frances whined from the door.

"I'm coming," I said.

Out in the garage, we each took a bike and slung our bags on our backs.

Once we at the lake, we dumped the bikes by the dock. I pulled off my sweatshirt, as did Frances. I was feeling a lot less enthused by this idea.

"You're in a bikini?" I said, eyeing her little top with polka dots.

"You're not wearing much of anything either. Neither of us are gonna get any warmer standing here!" she said, rubbing her arms to generate heat. I put my sweats on the ground and we walked to the end of the dock. My swimsuit was a one-piece, a 20s-looking thing with little shorts. It didn't cover my scar, but Frances wouldn't say anything. She had seen it a hundred times, and she was one of the only people that I felt comfortable about seeing it.

"Hold my hand so I know that you're not gonna fake out at the end," she said.

"I would never do that," I said, taking her hand. She eyed me with fake, overdone suspicion, since we both could recall several times that I had done it. After the age of 12, she had become less fooled by my tactics.

"Okay, let's get this over with. One the count of three. One." I looked into the water. "Two". It looked really cold. "Three!" We plunged into the water, both screaming. There wasn't anyone who lived on the lake that would be disrupted by our early-morning antics.

There was a rush of sound as we both went under the water. I resurfaced a few seconds before Frances. "Holy fuck," she said. "Oh my god. Oh my god."

"The lake's definitely not hollow," I called out to her. I splashed her in the face before starting to swim back to shore. I was pretty sure that my lips were already turning blue.

I pulled myself back onto the dock and helped Frances back off. We both lay on the dock for a moment. Our shivering interrupted our laughing.

"That was even worse than the Polar Bear Plunge, I'm pretty sure," Frances said.

I stood up and started to ring water out of my bathing suit. "I'm definitely not doing it with you now." I pressed the blue towel into my face and ruffled it around my hair before starting to dry off the rest of my body.

"Fine, I'll get Anika to go with me," Frances said, referencing her prom date.

"Wait, did you ask her out?" I said, momentarily forgetting the cold. I stopped what I was doing, smiling at the look on her face as she started to blush. "Are you, Frances Namkung, really blushing over a girl? You asked her out, didn't you?"

"She asked me out," Frances said, covering her face.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked her. "Did you say yes?"

"It was right before we got on the plane. I didn't say yes. We were leaving for England."

"You call her as soon as you can and you say yes. You guys were so cute at homecoming," I said. I pulled on my sweats. "And it being Senior year... Senior Prom. You had such a good time at Homecoming."

"Mhm. We did have a good time at Homecoming," she said and I could tell that she was thinking about it.

Goosebumps exploded down my arms and I stiffened. Frances must have felt the same thing, since we both looked went silent and looked at each other at the same time. Turning to the forest behind us, we both scanned it over, but there was nothing to be seen in the dense trees.

When nothing happened, I looked back at Frances, who shrugged. I hurried to pull my sweatshirt over my head.

"Weird," I said.

"Maybe it's goblins. You heard the lady."

"Oh, shut up. I'm already sick of hearing about it," I said, rolling my eyes. "What century is this?"

"Didn't you once watch a show on Discovery Channel about dragons and believe for like a year that dragons had really existed?" Frances said.

"Hey, don't bash on me because of dragons. You actually believe in aliens," I said.

"Aliens are scientifically probable, Joey. Dragons are not."

When we were done arguing, we got back on our bikes.

"We should go exploring today," Frances said after a few minutes.

"I'd like to get home before I get frostbite," I said. "A nice cup of hot chocolate. Coffee, maybe."

"You're making my stomach rumble," Frances whined. "Don't remind it that I haven't eaten."

"We've only been awake for like a half hour. I'm sure no one will even be awake yet, if they're smart."

"Why were you awake?" she asked. We went down a dirt road, cutting in between two houses that Kassidy had done the day before.

"I could hear you snoring," I said.

"I'm gonna head up to the library," Jensen said. He was taking small bites of corn flakes while scrutinizing the back of the milk's caloric label.

"You're more addicted to the internet than we are," Frances said. She was leaning against the counter, eating her cereal while Kassidy was sitting on the counter top.

"Homework. You know, that thing that some of us are concerned about doing," he said.

"You're probably just messaging Scott," Frances said.

"We're not dating," Jensen said.

"Never said you were," I chimed in.

"Who's Scott?" Kassidy asked. "Well, I can assume."

"Scott is who Jensen took to Homecoming. But they are definitely not dating," Frances said.

"Just because we went to a dance together, that does not mean that we're dating. You took Anika to the dance and you're not dating," Jensen said to Frances.

"Mmmmm." I looked at Frances.

"Hey! I said that she asked me out, not that we're dating." She pointed her spoon at me.

"She's going to say yes," I told Jensen, looking over my shoulder as I put my dish in the sink.

"So, see, you could be dating Scott," Frances said.

"His parents don't even know he's gay," Jensen said, standing up.

"How do they not know? You bought him a boutonniere," I said. "There were Facebook photos of you two dancing."

"The power of hopeful parents, I guess," he said. "And he bought me a boutonniere, too."

"Well, we'll get them a balloon or something," I said.

"Anyways, homework," he said.

"I already wrote my essay for Poli Sci and did my blog post for US History, so I'm done," I said.

"I took the Unit 4 test for German and I've done my final paper in Government and that dumb analysis in English," said Frances. "Online classes are nice." We were both taking online classes through a local community college, which allowed me to go where ever I needed to for dads work. Frances did it because it gave her no reason not to be able to go with us. I know that my dad liked it because he wanted someone to keep an eye on me, but it was Frances, and I'd take it.

"Much easier," I agreed. "I do like half the work you're doing in high school."

"Not my fault that I wanted to stay at high school," he said. He pushed passed me and put his dish in the sink.

"So you guys jumped in the lake this morning?" Kassidy said.

"It was Joey's idea," Frances said.

"You had mentioned it earlier. Not like I would come up with an idea like that on my own."

"It's normally starting to freeze around this time. Bet it was real chilly," Kassidy said.

"Ice skating!" Frances squealed. "Can we ice skate on it?"

"We do every year. I've got an extra pair of skates in the garage that my mom used to use when she was younger. Does you go ice skating where you live?"

"It doesn't get cold enough for it to freeze. But we've got rinks around. I took lessons as a kid," Frances said.

"I've never taken lessons, but I've been at it since I was a kid," Kassidy said.

"Ohhh, we'll have to see how good you really are," Frances said.


	6. Jensen Leaves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jensen announces his plans to leave.

Jensen was on the phone when I came into the kitchen. He was dressed, which I found weird, since the last time I had seen him, he had been in sweats.

"Who are you on the phone with?" I asked him. We didn't make calls here, since there was no international calling.

He held up a hand. "12:45. Thank you, ma'am," he said. He hung up the phone.

"12:45? What does that mean?" I said.

"It's the time my plane's leaving," he said.

"What?"

"I'm going back home," he said.

"What do you mean? You're not going back home." His shoes were sitting by his suitcase, which was by the door. I looked back at him, realizing that he was completely serious.

"Coach said he wants me to go to Tri-State. I can't say no. They'll be recruiters there," he said. Tri-State was a big wrestling competition in Idaho for the boys, with the best varsity wrestlers coming from Oregon, Washington, Montana, and Idaho to compete. It was a big deal to get invited to go on a team so large, and a bigger deal to see the competition and rank yourself amongst them.

"When did you even talk to your coach?" I said. We didn't have much of any contact.

"We've been emailing," he said. "I need to get there as soon as I can. 12:45 is the next flight that's leaving."

"You're not leaving!"The panic in my voice made me yell. So that was what he had supposedly been doing at the library. "

He ignored me as he put on his shoes.

"You can't just up and leave, Jensen," I said. Frances was already heading down the staircase with a worried look on her face.

"What's going on?"

"He's leaving," I said, waiving my hand at his retreating figure.

He pulled open the front door, bag in hand. I could see what I assumed was a cab, since it wasn't the yellow that I was used to, but rather black in color with no "taxi" sign on top.

I followed him outside. "You can't just leave us here. " I grabbed the handle of the suitcase, tugging him back.

"I'm doing this for me," he said, pulling away from me. "This is my thing. I need this for college." He threw his stuff in the back of the trunk and slammed it shut. "I don't have a GPA to carry me through college. I'm sick of babysitting you. Dad only made me come because of how you freaked after mom died."

"So you're going to abandon me just like mom did to us?" I said, putting myself in front of the car door. If he could pull the mom card, so could I.

"Move out of my way, Josephine," he said, voice low.

I stood my ground, sure that he wouldn't lay a hand on me. "I can't let you drive away in some random cab to fly home. We're not even in the right country. Where are you going to spend the night?"

"I've got a flight leaving in three hours. It's not the first time I've flown," he said. "Please move out of my way before I have to remove you."

"I'm your older sister. I'm not just letting you leave by yourself." I blocked his grab for the door handle. "This isn't want Dad wants you to do."

He grabbed my arms and slammed me against the car. "Dad's not here!" he yelled and I froze. The memory of Gavin's hands around my arms on Homecoming night flashed through my eyes. His fingers were digging into my skin and starting to hurt already. As if he suddenly realized that his arms were on me, he dropped them and stood back, staring at his palms like they were bloody. "Joey-" he started to say, but I pushed my way past him.

I ran back into the house and up the stairs, into my room.

"Just go!" I heard Frances yell. A minute later, I heard her footsteps on the staircase.

I was already tying my shoes. "What are you doing?" she said. Kassidy stood outside of my door, unsure of herself in the midst of such drama.

I tugged my running jacket on silently and went past her down the stairs.

"It's the middle of the night. You can't just run off, Joey," she said.

I saw the taillights of the taxi as I took off running.

My anger fueled me for about three miles. I was a distance runner, so the mileage didn't affect me so much. But when I stopped and dropped to a sitting position on the banks of the lake, I realized two things: it was both very dark and very cold. The moon was reflecting off of the lake surface, but I didn't know my way very well. I had gotten here easier than I could get myself back, I was pretty sure.

I collapsed backwards against the grass, breathing heavily. My heart was pounding in my chest. For three miles, I had been distracted from what had just happened, but now on the calm November night, I didn't have anything else to distract me.

I'm sick of babysitting you. Dad only made me come because of how you freaked after mom died.

I guess I knew that it was true. I had freaked out, if that was the term that he wanted to use, after our mother had died. I hadn't known how to handle myself. Dad and Jensen were in too much shock to be any comfort to me. After mom's failure with psychiatric help, I had vehemently denied that I needed it.

I had spent the next year and a half numbing the pain with a series of bad relationships, ending in one very bad one. The alcohol had come later, not until I had dated a guy named Trevor, when my attempts at other bad decisions such as sex had no longer satisfied my self-destructive rampage. Each boyfriend had been progressively worse, ending with Gavin and a very bad scar.

Frances stuck by me the whole time. My dad had finally taken action, once he was forced to. We took Gavin to court. He landed in an anger management program and I had ended up for the month of October in a psychiatric facility.

And nearly three months after it had happened, I felt better. It was touch and go, but recovery always was. I took my medications; Frances was her cheerful self; and we started to move on.

I hadn't thought that Jensen would ever grab me. I needed reassurance that I was safe, above all else. Frances was safe. Jensen was safe.

I took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, then let it out.

Jensen is safe, I told myself. I had seen the look on his face when he had realized what he had done. I could forgive him for that. I could even forgive him for being frustrated that he had to "babysit" me. I had had to babysit our mother and for once, I didn't want to feel selfish for needing attention. We were all hurting, though. Even Jensen, no matter how well he hid it.

My shirt was sticking to my body from the sweat, and I knew there would be grass stains on the back of my jacket. It had to be nearing 10:30, so it wasn't too late, but definitely later than I should be out in a strange place where I wasn't comfortable yet.

I stood up and pulled my hair out of the bun and combed it with my fingers. While I did so, I watched the reflection of the moon move slowly over the water. It illuminated enough that I could see the forest towering over my own reflection. We hadn't yet gone into the forest, but I knew that Frances would have her way soon enough. I enjoyed having Frances here, since if she wasn't, I doubted that I'd have left the house much except for the library or bookstore for more books.

I pulled my hair up into my hands, ready to put it into a pony tail for the walk back. My hands froze as I saw something come onto the flat mirror of the lake's surface. I slowly finished by pony tail as I watched it approach. It was the shape of a man, but I thought I saw orange. A chill came over me. I turned around, but when I looked behind me, there was nothing but dark forest.

Well, I was out of here, I thought to myself, taking one last look before starting to head back to The Hall. I was not going to be the dumb girl in the horror movie that went looking into the forest in the middle of the night, alone.

I zipped my jacket and looked ahead at the long walk that I had to go.


	7. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A flashback to Homecoming, three months prior.

I wrapped my fingers around his upper arm, pulling him closer to my body. There were so many people around me that I was sweating, even in my strapless dress. He drew me closer, putting on hand on my bare upper back and pulling me to the side, nearly missing a couple as they lurched off of the dance floor, heading to the exit. With a school this large, even the spacious ballroom was barely able to contain us.

"You want to go to my car?" Gavin said, nearly yelling over the loud pop music.

"You want to have sex in your car?" I said, matching his devious smile. I wasn't normally so brash, but the loud music made me feel intoxicated. His fingers danced over the dip of my lower back.

He nodded before leaning his head down to kiss me quickly on the lips. His arm stayed around my waist as we weaved our way through the gyrating bodies. The disco lights on the ceiling illuminated the top of the white arched ceilings and matched the tempo of the song playing, so loud and thumping in my ears that I couldn't make out the exact lyrics of the song.

We made our way up the few steps to where the tables were. They were littered with shoes, empty plastic cups, and handbags. I grabbed my purse, leaning over a friend of mine, who was half-laying on her boyfriend.

"Sabrina, you already look trashed," I said. Gavin's fingers found their way past the hem holding the fabric to my skin and pushed his fingers along the very bottom of my back, causing goosebumps to erupt all up my back.

"Where you going?" Sabrina's boyfriend asked, nodding up at Gavin.

"We're going bowling," he said with that same smile again, tugging on me a bit. I hadn't agreed to that part of it, but they all knew what he meant. He could smoke at the hotel, but there would be no driving if he was high.

The table erupted in a chorus of "oooohhh"s from the girls and a few other words from the boys.

"Meet you at the hotel room?" Sabrina's boyfriend asked.

"Hell yeah," Gavin said. He had rented it for the night and several of the boys were already equipped with room cards. He pulled me away from crowd and we left the crowded room, spilling into the cold night's air. His car was across the street from the party, at the corner of the lot where the lights didn't shine.

He unlocked his car and I saw the lights flash. He pushed me against the passenger side door, starling me, and pressed his body against mine as his mouth found its way to my lips. The cold metal of his car frame was shocking against my bare back.

"Babe, it's freezing out here," I said after freeing my mouth from his a moment later. "And we're in the middle of a parking lot."

"I heard you blew Trevor in the utility closet at Prom last year and you're worried about kissing in a parking lot?" he said, his laugh muffled from his mouth pressed into my collarbone.

I sighed, obviously pissed at his comment, but he either didn't notice or didn't care. I put my hand on his shoulder and pressed. He leaned back of his own accord, since I wouldn't even be capable of pushing him away unless he wanted to.

"Can you not be an asshole, please, Gavin," I said, turning my face away from him as he leaned down to kiss me. He reached up and grabbed my face, fingers digging into my jaw, and redirecting my face so that I had to look at him.

"I'm just trying to have a good time, Joey," he said.

I nodded, deciding that was the best thing that I could do. "I know." I looked down.

I heard someone else call my name from across the parking lot, and we both turned to look at who it was. Sabrina and her boyfriend were about 20 yards away. Frances and her date, a Senior girl that I didn't know very well named Anika, were in tow. Thomas was hanging onto Sabrina's arm, trying to keep her upright. I wasn't sure quite what had been in the flask that she had poured into her coke, but I could guess out of a few things that I knew wrecked her that quick.

"Let her go, Gavin," Frances said, and I felt my stomach sink. Gavin looked back at me, his face inches away from mine, but did release his hold on my jaw. His hand instead found its way to my upper arm, gripping with more force than he had before.

"Joey, come with me," she said. Thomas said something to her as she took a few steps forward.

I could feel Gavin getting angrier by the second, as his grip tightened around my arm. It had been enough months of this that I could feel the anger radiating off of his body before he probably even realized that he was mad at me.

"Get in the car," Gavin said, his voice low.

"It's fine, Frances," I said to her, glancing back at Gavin. He opened the door and I looked at her one last time before sitting down in the car. There was a few second gap where the car was quiet, and I used it to take a deep breath and steel myself against the storm that was about to happen.

He got into the car and locked the doors with a click of a button. The quiet sound made me jump. He was quiet as we pulled out of the parking lot, and I saw Frances on the phone as we left. With every minute that he was quiet, my apprehension grew.

I rubbed the palm of my hand, trying to make myself as quiet and invisible as I could.

When we got to the hotel, I waited in silence for him to speak or to let me leave the car. He turned to me finally, and I knew by the smile on his face that I was in trouble.

"Do you remember last year how Trevor left you on the curb outside of Prom and went home with Catherine?" I nodded, looking straight ahead. "Who took you home when you had no way to get there?"

"You did," I whispered. I closed my eyes, focusing on breathing instead of the tears that were building.

"I could have just left you there, but I took you in. You are so lucky that I took pity on you, Joey." He nodded to himself with a little smile on his face.

I nodded, unable to speak. It would be over in a minute, I told myself.

"You were such a slut, fucking anyone who looked at you. It's your own fault that Trevor left you at the dance. You were disgusting. No one would want to date you, but look at you now. Look what I've done for you." He paused. I was crying. "Look at me, Josephine," he said. When I didn't quick enough, he repeated himself, this time yelling. I flinched and looked at him. "Aren't you thankful?" he asked.

I nodded. "I am, Gavin."

"After everything that I've done for you, and you repay me by embarrassing me like that in the parking lot?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you mad. I didn't know Frances or Sabrina would show up. I know you just want to have a good time. I'm sorry," I said, hoping this would be done with in a moment. I'd rather he just hit me and get it over with, rather than berating me.

"Let's go inside," he said. "You can make it up to me."

I nodded and waited for him to get out of the car before I knew I was allowed to get out. I was glad for my long skirt as I walked with him across the parking lot. He took off his jacket and slung it over my shoulders, then put one arm around my torso. Even in my heels, he still had several inches on me, but we walked easily. I slowly relaxed, knowing that I was safe at least until we got upstairs.

We walked through the lobby, and I was thankful for the warm air. Gavin's parents were more of the passive, absent type, mostly sustaining their relationship through disposable income. His dad had no problem shelling out cash to pay for this hotel room, which was way fancier than I had ever stayed in.

The elevator was glass on all three sides, making me feel claustrophobic and dizzy as I saw my worried expression bouncing off of all three different mirrors. Our room was all the way on the 15th floor, and I was thankful for every floor that passed that he hadn't shoved me against the elevator wall like the stunt in the parking lot.

The hallway was mostly quiet, but it soon wouldn't be. We had maybe 20 minutes until Sabrina and Thomas got here, once they were done with what I knew was going to happen in that car. The hotel room was large compared to my 2-queen-sized average hotel room basis of comparison. Most of it was taken up by a living room space and a kitchen. He led me by my hand down the hallway to the bedroom. Right before we opened the door, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me closer to him, kissing me.

I smiled, happy that he was happy.

"Want a beer?" he said.

"Is that the strongest you've got?" I asked him. I reached my hand down to his pocket. "That a flask in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" I reached inside his slacks pocket and pulled it out, giving him a smile. The shiny metal reflected the nearby wall scone. I undid the cap and took a small drink, wrinkling my nose at the whiskey. I didn't like whiskey, but I didn't want beer.

He took it from me and took a drink. His tolerance for alcohol- whiskey, especially- was much higher than mine.

We went into the room after that. I let him unzip me from my dress. I should have drank more whiskey, I thought. If I was being honest with myself, the reason I was with Gavin was because of the sex. He helped me forget everything that was going on. Distracted me from the other things in my mind, more like. I had been a total mess before him, not knowing which way to dull my pain.

I let my dress puddle around my ankles on the floor as stepped out of it. He sat on the bed, taking another drink from the flask before setting it on the bedside table. When he got drunk, his mouth did a sloppy grin that I loved. It meant he was happy, and didn't hit me when he was happy.

I had gone lingerie shopping the day before with Frances. She had wanted something nice for her date, and I had wanted something nice for Gavin. The garter belt was black and simple, but the tops of my stockings were intricately decorated like delicate peacock feathers. He put his finger under the straps holding my stockings to my belt and pulled me closer.

"These are new," he said.

"I got them just for you," I said. I brought my hands up to his hair and ran my fingers through them. I massaged his scalp a little bit with my manicured nails.

"I think they'd look better on the floor," he said, unhooking one of the claps.

Gavin was drunk. I watched him from across the room, standing with my back against the breakfast bar in the hotel room's kitchen. I swirled the remaining liquid around in my red plastic solo cup. I wondered how much time we had left until we got shut down, since it was past midnight, and we were being loud. Maybe they wouldn't do anything, because the room had been pretty expensive.

Sabrina came to stand next to me. She looked a bit better, now that we were out of the dance. The environment always made people feel a bit drunk.

"You okay?" she asked me, dipping her head down so that she wouldn't be heard.

I nodded my head. "He's drunk now, so as long as no one pisses him off..."

She didn't say anything, but I could see the look on her face. I had heard the speeches and read the pamphlets that the counselors gave out like candy.

Frances showed up a little bit later, girlfriend in tow. They weren't technically dating, but I was pretty sure from the look on their faces that I would see a Facebook update in the morning. I saw her glance over me, eyes narrowed a bit.

"Have fun?" I asked her as her date wandered off into the throng of people. Sabrina and I looked at her expectantly. She tried to resist the smile, but I saw it break across her face.

"Glad we went shopping yesterday," she said to me, and Sabrina laughed. Frances took the cup from her hand and sipped on it, then wrinkled her nose and handed it back.

Frances' date came and took her hand, pulling her into the crowd of people.

"Want to go dance?" Sabrina said. "I don't know where Thomas went to. Probably don't want to know." I scanned the crowd, but I didn't see him either. I could barely see where Gavin had gone to. He was flirting with a girl, obvious from the way that he leaned into her, putting a hand on her shoulder.

A few minutes later, Sabrina looked up and squealed. I turned around to see my brother and his date. Sabrina gave Jensen a hug. His date was a soccer player named Scott, who matched my brother in height. We knew each other pretty well, since we had been stuck as lab partners in Chemistry all year.

Sabrina, Frances, and my brother had been friends for years, since Sabrina and Frances were always over at my house. My brother gave me a look and I grabbed Scott's arm, pulling him to me so that I could look away from my brother. I knew he was pissed, and I knew that Frances must have called him, otherwise he wouldn't have shown up here at all.

"Dance with me," I said, pleading with him. He glanced at Jensen and shrugged at his look, but let me dance with him.

I should have expected what happened. In the manner of a few minutes, I watched the delicate balance that I had been keeping up for months come shattering down, literally.

Gavin grabbed my arm, scaring me since I hadn't even seen him coming.

Scott looked up, surprised. I barely looked up before I was looking back at the ground. I didn't raise my hand, since defending myself only ever made him angrier. I could taste blood in my mouth and feel the sting on my face.

It took me a few seconds to remember that we were in the middle of a party.

I realized he was yelling at me and I instantly knew what it was about, even though it was several moments before I could process what he was saying.

"Scott's gay, Gavin," I said. His hand on my arm tightened. "He's screwing my brother." But that didn't matter. Gavin could have sex with a 100 girls and I would never have been allowed to be jealous, but I stand next to a guy- an obviously gay who who was screwing my own brother- and that was unforgivable.

"Get off of my fucking sister," Jensen said, moments before his fist connected with Gavin's face. Someone screamed, and I looked up to see that everyone had stopped what they were doing to watch what was happening.

Gavin stumbled back a few steps, not expecting my brother to hit him. Jensen and Gavin were matched in height and build. Wrestling had turned Jensen from a scrawny kid to a man. Gavin was in football, and I had seen him knock people out at games. I saw that Gavin had a nearly empty beer bottle on one hand.

Scott tried to pull me back, but I pulled out of his grip and tried to step in front of Jensen. "Stop it," I said, sure that Gavin wouldn't hit me with my brother right there, nor would Jensen try to fight him if I got in his way.

I remembered reading somewhere that teachers were told to break eye contact between two boys that were fighting and that would make them stop. Maybe that had been wrong information, or maybe Gavin had been both mad enough and drunk enough.

He raised the bottle and Jensen tried to push me away but I pushed back. Gavin wouldn't hit me with a beer bottle, I wanted to say to him. I was glad that I hadn't said it, because it ended up being false.

The sound of the bottle shattering was the first thing to register. Frances started yelling. Scott pulled me back against his body, taking my weight as I collapsed, the pain of it hitting me. I heard him on the phone, saying our room number to the person on the other line. He sat me on a chair.

Someone pressed a towel to my neck but I pulled it away, looking down at the blood and shredded skin in shock.


	8. Dream

I had the same dream every night for four days. It was a welcome change from the nightmares, but these were frustrating, and when I woke up, I was angry that I hadn't stayed asleep longer.

It was the night from when Jensen had left, by the lake. Dreams were not prophetic- I wasn't that dumb. They were your brains way of coping with experiences and problem solving. If you died in a dream, you didn't die in real life (though I had been convinced of this as a child). I didn't think that I was that hung up on what I had seen at the water's surface. An illusion, or maybe an animal. It looked like a man, but it had last only a second.

But when I had the same dream every night for four days, which left me waking up feeling like I hadn't slept at all, I knew that somewhere in my subconscious, I was still wondering about the lake.

It began in the same way. I stood up from the ground where I had been laying. I didn't mess with my ponytail, since in my dream my hair looked fine (my first clue that it was definitely a dream).

I stepped to the edge of the water's surface. My reflection was clear. Behind me, I saw the shape of the man- I had determined after four days that it was a man, at least in my dream. He was walking towards me; his shape was hazier in the water and obstructed my assessment of him. I wasn't able to make out his features or anything of substance, except that he was black.

I wanted to turn around and just look- this whole waiting game was annoying, even to my dream-self, but something was preventing me from looking. For each of four dreams, he got closer to me, but I was always unable to make out his features. He was in dark clothing that covered everything from the neck down, including gloves, which only helped to make him look more formidable since he looked like he could dwarf Jensen in both height and shoulder-width.

On the fourth night, I woke up, just like clockwork, in the middle of the night. I was getting really tired -literally- of not sleeping. As soon as I woke up from the dream, I was never able to fall back asleep.

I resorted to taking power naps during the day to get any sleep in. The incident, or rather the replay of it several times and the lack of sleep caused by that, made me feel paranoid to go out at night. I no longer wanted to run at night, which was one of my favorite times to run, and when Kassidy retired for the inside at night, I was with her. I locked my upstairs window and never opened the curtains.

I laid in bed, not really feeling tired anymore at that point, just pissed off at whatever was happening in my brain to make these dreams keep happening. If I never dreamt again, I would be a happier and well-rested person.

I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. If I couldn't sleep here, maybe I could sleep somewhere else. Wrapping the blanket around my shoulders like a cape, I grabbed a pillow and shuffled downstairs to the couch. I threw my pillow onto one end and fell down dramatically on the couch cushions. A little bit of wiggling around, and I was good.

I was asleep within minutes.

When the same dream situation popped up, I looked at myself in the reflection without expression, like I was in an episode of The Office where they look up at the camera. I realized that I wasn't wearing my normal outfit, but an ugly dress- emphasis on ugly. Normally dream scenes had the girl in a white, flowing dress that was simple but pretty. This dress was none of these things.

It looked like someone got really drunk on Project Runway and totally flunked the challenge. The bodice was a shiny purple fabric. It was strapless with my back showing, kind of like my Homecoming dress. I could see the scar, but I didn't really care about that at all at the moment. The skirt was high-low, the front ending at the knees, which was the most normal thing about the whole outfit. The skirt was made up of ruffly gold squares of fabric sewn in a spiral pattern, kind of like a Kindergartner's rendition of cupcake frosting.

And to top all of it off, I wasn't even wearing shoes.

I want out of this dream, I thought to myself, just because this dress is so awful. So I told myself to wake up. Nothing happened. Normally I was pretty capable of pulling myself out of dreams. Realize it's a dream, and you wake right up.

Wake up, I told myself. Nothing happened. What the actual hell. This wasn't an alternate universe. It was a dream.

I was so caught up in the ugly dress and the fact that I was stuck in the dream that didn't notice the figure coming to stand right behind me. I looked over my shoulder, startled by how close the man was. But it wasn't a man at all.

I was only 5'3", which wasn't tall, even for a girl. He was over 6'0" for sure. Jensen was 6'1" and this guy had a few on him. He wasn't a man- well, he certainly wasn't human. His ears were pointed, but it looked like they been pushed back against his head and fused back into his skin. There was no hair on his head, not even eyebrows. His jaw was wide, allowing for his chin to make a large v shape, with just enough rounding at the end to make it not a sharp point, and his nose was nearly nonexistent with a small nub of a bridge that only encapsulated half his nostrils.

But besides the fact that his overall ugliness was startling, it was his eyes that shocked me. I had seen orange at the lake, and now I knew why. His eyes were a deep shade of orange, something close to a pumpkin.

What the hell kind of dream was this? This guy was seriously ugly, and so was this dress. He couldn't be human, with a face like that... a face kinda like a troll. Or maybe a goblin.

Wake up.

I heard the words like someone had said them right into my ear.

I opened my eyes but didn't move. My heart was beating so fast in my chest that I felt a panic attack working its way up, threatening to go full-scale if I moved. I took several deep breaths and gripped the fluffy duvet. I was safe. I was fine, I told myself.

After a few minutes and a lot of deep breathing later, I felt calmer. I hadn't had a full-scale panic attack in weeks, and I was eager to keep that figure going longer.

I pushed the blanket off of me and sat up. I rubbed my hands over my face and behind my neck.

So what my dreamscape was trying to tell me wasn't that I was hung up on what happened at the lake, but rather it was all that talk about goblins at the beginning of the week. Goblins were... Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, not 21st century. Fucking English people. America had civilized myths like vampires and werewolves.

I laughed at myself and started to go back upstairs, feeling better. My heart was still beating too fast, but I tried to ignore it. I threw my pillow across the room, it hitting the side of the bed and falling to the floor.

I walked to it and reached down to grab it. When I picked it up, I noticed something under my bed. I eyed the dark space suspiciously, weighing my options of real life vs. horror movie probability. My hand hovered before the space. It was a book, obvious to me, but that didn't mean I would get grabbed, pulled under the bed, and die.

"You're being ridiculous," I whispered to myself, then quickly reached under the bed and snatched the book. I jumped onto my bed like a sensible person and looked over the edge, but nothing came out to attack me.

These nightmares were going to have to stop because they were making me ridiculous. I flipped the book over, and I instantly knew it: the fucking goblin book that the lady had given me. I hadn't read any of it, but I was pretty positive that I left it on the bookshelf across the room. I tossed it across the room, where it skidded and landed in a corner. Throwing the blankets over my head, I buried myself in a cocoon of fluff and tried to go back to sleep.


	9. Favor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The housekeeper asks Joey for a favor.

I was saved that morning from having to do anything that involved leaving the house, because Frances came down with a 24 hour flu. I was pretty sure that it was more like a half-hour flu, but Frances was dramatic, and I didn't mind taking care of her. I brought up a cup of tea for her that night- well, it was still day time. The sunset around 4:00 pm, which wasn't that much different than what it would be back in Seattle.

"How ya doing, Frances?" I said, sitting down on the edge of her bed. She was surrounded in a plethora of fluffy pillows and blankets. On one side of her was a tissue box, and I could see the trashcan sitting next to her bed was at least half full of tissues.

"Still sick," she said. The tip of her nose was pink, to complete the whole ensemble.

"Well, I'll bring you up some soup," I said, handing her the cup of tea. "If you're feeling too sick, I won't bring up the cinnamon bread that Kassidy is making."

"What?" she asked, perking up a bit. She remembered herself and relaxed into the pillows. "They make so much bread, but it's so good."

"I'll go see if any of it's done," I said, standing up. "You want soup?" They had made split-pea soup after the Sunday dinner from the ham hock. I wasn't sure if it was a British tradition to make Sunday dinner, but it was something that I could get behind.

"Soup, please. And we're going on a picnic tomorrow," she said as I walked out of the room. "With the cinnamon bread."

I went back downstairs, where Kasiddy and her mother were making bread. The house smelled wonderful. The window was cracked a bit to let in some air into the stuffy kitchen. My mother used to cook when I was younger, before she had Jensen and he went to Kindergarten and she went back to work. My father wasn't a bad cook himself, but he was just always busy. I was not a good cook, and had neither the talent nor the desire to be good at it. Baking was a whole other thing, but bread was an entirely different expertise than pastries. Jensen had probably never touched the oven, and so we sustained on boxed and frozen meals for the most part.

Mrs. Meyer perked up when she saw me. "Josephine!" she said breathlessly.

"Hello," I said, immediately suspicious.

"Can you do a favor for me?" she asked.

"Sure," I said, since there was no way that I could say anything other than yes.

"I need you to take this to the neighbor's for me," she said, holding up a thick envelope.

"What neighbor?" I asked. She didn't have neighbors. It was like three miles to the nearest house, which was the point of living on an estate.

"It's Jeffrey's mother," Kassidy said. She had mentioned him a few times. "The brown house on the left side of the path we take to go to town. The one with that garden gnome." I knew what house they were talking about, since it did have one of the ugliest garden gnomes I'd ever seen.

"It's already dark," I said. "It's, like, dire?"

"I was supposed to give it to her yesterday, and she's leaving for London early in the morning." The housekeeper gave me a pathetically sad look. I couldn't say no. "And the sun's just setting. You'll be fine. This isn't London, after all." She smiled, as if I had already agreed, which I guessed that I had. "Kassidy said you run that way a lot. There's no way that you can get lost."

"I'll go get my jacket, I guess," I said. I turned away, feeling like something was off. "Let me bring Frances her food."

"Oh, I'll bring it up to her," Kassidy's mom said.

"Alright," I said, trailing off at the end as I went up the stairs. I grabbed my jacket and popped my head into Frances' room to tell her what was going on. When I got back downstairs, Kassidy's mother was holding a cinch bag in her hand.

"I put it and a loaf of bread in here," she said.

I took the cinch bag and put it over my shoulders. Nervously, I ran my hand up and down the strings as I walked outside. It was definitely almost dark, and no way could I get back before the sunset. I wouldn't get there before the sunset.

All day I had open to do errands, while it was both several degrees warmer and daylight out, but no. I went into the garage and pulled out a bike. Did no one have cars in England? The city, sure, but in the middle of Nowhere, UK? Taxicabs couldn't be that reasonable here.

I sighed as I walked into the shed. The walls were lined with gardening tools hooked into a wall and other things for gardening on the shelves.. In the summer and spring, this whole little house probably looked pretty nice.

I rolled the bike out and got onto it, resigned to my fate. If I died, I was going to be seriously pissed off.

The loaf of bread was warm against my back, which was nice because the temperatures were dropping. In the mornings, there was frost on the stairs and I had had to abandon reading outside.

I made my way to the woman's house. My gloves weren't thick enough, and I squeezed the handlebar, trying to get blood back into my fingers. I was thankful that I had put on a scarf, but all I was wearing was a t-shirt, jeans, and a sweatshirt. I should have sucked it up and worn my ear muffs.

I put my bike on the side of the house before walking around to the front. She had what I assumed was an impressive garden during the summer months. Now it was mostly bare, but there was a little white picket fence surrounding the front yard. The front door had one of those gargoyle shoe cleaners. I looked down at my boots, but I wasn't concerned about my boots being dirty or not, since I wasn't going inside.

I knocked on the door. No one answered. I rang the doorbell again. No one answered. I ran one foot absently over the bristles of the shoe brush. I was about to shove it into the mail slot when the door finally opened.

A thin older woman opened the door, wearing an apron. Her hair was graying, but in a way that made it clear that normally she dyed her hair and just hadn't gotten done with it yet.

"You must be Josephine," she said, smiling. "Aren't you a pretty thing."

"Yeah," I said, unsure of how to answer that weird compliment.

"I'm Jeffrey's mom, but you can call me Mrs. Evans," she said.

I took the bag off of my back. "Nice to meet you, Mrs. Evans. I have the envelope Ms. Meyer wanted me to give you."

"Oh, come in. It's so cold outside." I started to protest but she pulled the, "Oh, I insist" line. I sighed internally and stepped in, watching the last little bit of light I might have disappear.

I took my boots off at the door, putting them on her little metal shoe rack. The inside of the house looked normal, and not the floral-pattern metal-cookie-tin I was expecting from her initial look.

I took the bread out, which was still warm, and handed it to her. "Kassidy was making bread, so she thought that you might want some."

"It smells lovely." She took it from me. "Go ahead and sit down and I'll get us a piece. I'm sure that you're eager to have some too, after smelling it the whole way here."

She disappeared into the kitchen and I took a seat on a winged back chair. Above her fireplace, there were pictures of her various children. She seemed a little old to have a 15- and 16-year old, since I knew that was about how old Jeffery was, and his apparent similarly-aged sister who was in the pictures with him. There was also a younger girl who could only be 7-years old at most. Was this really Mrs. Evan's child, or was it a grandchild?

Mrs. Evans came back out and handed me a plate with a fork. She put down a cup of tea on a saucer on the table in front of me. I didn't really care for tea that much, so I wasn't too happy to see it. I picked it up and took a sip as she watched, trying to be a polite guest.

I watched the minute hand on the clock go farther and farther as we sat in silence. Eventually she started asking me questions, and I responded as well as I could. I finished my bread and most of my tea, just to speed the visit up.

"You look so young, dear. How old are you?"

"I'm almost 18. My birthday's in a few days," I said.

"18's a big one," she said.

We said nothing more for several minutes.

"I should really head back, Mrs. Evans. My friend is sick and I'm taking care of her."

She looked up at the clock. "Oh, I apologize. It's late enough. Thank you for bringing the envelope for me."

I nodded. "It's late enough"? What a weird thing to say. She took my dishes from me and decided not to ask her.

Once back outside, I collected my bike. I pulled it slowly away from the wall and hesitated to get back on it. I felt like someone was watching me, and it wasn't an easy feeling to shake. After that dream the night before, or rather early that morning, I was tenfold not wanting to be outside at night. I didn't really want to be outside at all. I wanted to be home, with Jensen at his wrestling meets, and drink a decent cup of sugary coffee. I'd take London, even. Not here.

For all of my creepy feelings, I got back to the house just fine, without any dying or kidnapping or murder that normally happens to a lone girl in a strange place near a forest at night.

When I put the bike back against the inner wall of the shed and started to walk back to the house, I was suddenly reminded of the time that I had gone running when I had first gotten here. I had come back to find that the doors were locked, and I had climbed the trellis just to get into the house.

I could see Kassidy's window from this side of the house. A lamp was on in her room. I had never been in her bedroom or even seen it, but I would have placed a bet that it had a beautiful view of the forest. It had to be the nicer of the four rooms, since she chose her room so long ago.

I walked around to the front of the house and up the cement stairs. I should have demanded a key before I left. But the door is not going to be locked, I told myself. So when it was locked, I rested my forehead against the wooden door, suddenly exhausted.

"Why?" I whispered to myself.

I knocked on the door, but no one answered, just like I assumed. It could only be 5, at the latest. No one should be asleep, except maybe Frances. Was this some kind of joke?

I should have demanded a key. I should have opened my window. I couldn't even climb up the trellis, since there was no way that the door would ever open.

I turned around and put my back to the door, looking out into the night. I didn't feel creeped out, at least not anymore than I normally would at night.

My first plan of action was that most people had a hidden key. This was quickly foiled because of the lack of rafters, potted plants, and a welcome mat. Sometimes they had those fake rocks, but I couldn't find one of those at night.

I pressed my ear to the door, wondering if I could hear anything. It sounded like a soft roar on the other side. Was she vacuuming? It had to be upstairs, judging by how quiet the sound was.

I could just wait until she was done vacuuming, but I was getting the impression that she was locking me out for a reason. Besides, it was cold and I wanted to be inside. I shoved my hands in my pockets and went around back.

I tried the back door, but it was locked. I tried the window, but it was also locked. Sparking an idea from my early-season Supernatural knowledge, I looked at the window lock. I had to sit up on the edge of the railing to see the window. It was a sash lock. I had actually done this once with Frances when we had been younger. It looked easy in theory, but there was probably a reason why people didn't do this more often when so many houses still had these locks. My window had been basically painted shut, so even though we eventually got the lock undone, we couldn't get it open.

But it had been open in the kitchen before, I remembered. So if I could get the lock undone, I could get inside.

I didn't have a knife on me, I realized. I didn't carry a pocket knife on my person, and I hadn't brought my purse with me. It was kind of hard to break into a house without a knife.

I realized that I had a couple of other options. I could have tried to get Kassidy's attention or Frances', but I didn't feel like yelling at a window in the dark. I could just wait on the doorstep for the housekeeper to stop vacuuming, but I doubted that she'd answer.

More than that, I wanted to feel vindicated about my suspicions that she was locking me out of the house. If I had to go to the lengths of breaking into a kitchen window just to get in, then surely there was something going on here.

There had been a toolbox in the shed, I was pretty sure. I hopped down from the railing and made my way back to the shed. One problem: it was pitch black in the shed. I was pretty sure that I had seen it sitting in the corner.

I cautiously put my hands on top of the bench, then moved my way over to the wall. When I hit a solid box, I ran my hand over it to determine if it was probably a tool box. It was metal, about the dimensions that I was assume a tool box to be, and had a little claps in the front. I found the handle and picked it up.

Once back at the porch, I determined that it was a toolbox by cracking it open. It creaked and I had to pull on it a bit to get the rusty hinges to allow the lid open. The moon was covered by the clouds, not allowing much light for me to shuffle through the tools.

Towards the bottom, buried within hammers and screwdrivers, I found a multi-purpose tool. I stood up, hopped onto the railing, and pulled the knife out of the tool. The handle was slippery in my cotton gloves, so I held on to the side of the window with one hand to steady myself.

I shoved it between the panels of the window. It took a bit of working back and forth, but I got it behind the lock. I put both hands on the knife and pulled to the side. It slid easily, throwing me off balance a bit. I took off my gloves, shoving them in my pocket, then used the friction of my fingertips to pull it up enough until I could get my fingers underneath the panel. I pushed it up until it hit the frame.

Picking up the knife in my hand, I replaced the blade, then threw it down with both anger and a little bit of pride. Breaking into windows was something that I did infrequently, so I kind of felt like I accomplished something. I left the toolbox on the ground. It wasn't my priority to put it back when I had had to use it just to get in the house.

Bent over, I pulled myself into the house onto the counter. I swung my legs in and closed the window behind me. It was quiet in the house, but I could smell a lingering scent of cinnamon bread. I locked the window after contemplating the irony for several seconds.

I dumped my shoes by the door and pulled off my scarf as I went up the stairs. The housekeeper was not upstairs, and there was no sign of the vacuum. It was only 5:30, at the latest. Underneath Kassidy's door, I could see the light of her lamp. So she was awake. I went into Frances' room, but she was sleeping.

Once in my room, I stripped out of my jacket, pants, and shirt. I sat on the edge of my bed in my underwear and worked to free my hair from the bun I had put it in earlier in the day.

I checked the clock on the wall as I tried to finger-comb out knots in my hair. It was 5:23. I had been gone near an hour and a half. 5:30 was too early to go to bed. I wasn't really tired, but with my partner in crime sleeping, I didn't have a lot else to do.

I flitted about my dresser for several minutes before finally putting on a t-shirt from last year when Frances and I had been camp counselors for a bunch of sixth graders and a pair of shorts, even though it was cold in the room. The heater was on, since I could hear the old system attempting to chug heat all the way to the second floor.

In a stack on the desk was my pile of books. It had taken up too much of my allotted weight requirements from the airport, but I had picked up a few things from the bookstore. The books were ragtag, most with eared corners and parts of the cover missing. I had to read Treasure Island later in the quarter, so I had picked it up.

I took it from the stack and retired to my bed, covering my legs with a throw blanket. With my bedside table lamp on, I opened up the first page of Treasure Island and began to read.

It wasn't that bad of a book, considering that I wasn't a big fan of classics. I liked the movie versions of Jane Austen's books, but I found most of them too long-winded for me. It was less than 200 pages, so I figured that I could read the whole thing tonight.

The first 12 chapters were do for me to test on in a few days, but I surpassed that mark quickly.

I was approaching the 20th chapter when a loud sound startled me. I put the book face-down on the covers next to me as I sat up taller to peer over the edge of the bed.

A book was laying on the ground. When I realized what book it was, I threw the covers off of my legs and got up.

It was that freaking goblin book. I had thrown this in the corner. I wasn't kinda sure this time; I was 1000% positive. I picked it up. One of the pages was wrinkled, so I opened it up and attempted to smooth out the page.

A black-and-white illustration took up most of the page. The caption below it said, "Many stories revolved around the goblins stealing young women to marry."

Really.

The picture illustrated a woman in torn clothing in a drippy cave, holding a little ugly baby on her lap. There were stalagmites and stalactites to top off the idea.

Frustrated with the book continuously showing up and only adding to my nightmares, I took it downstairs and threw it in the trash can.


	10. Picnic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josephine and Frances go on a picnic

I was reading a book when Frances flopped down on my bed the next afternoon. I hadn't dreamt at all the night before. For once since we had gotten here, I had slept the whole night through, and I felt refreshed.

"I want to go for a picnic," she said, staring up at the ceiling. "You agreed to it yesterday, don't forget."

"I never agreed to anything, and I want to finish my book. I thought you were reading Divergent?" I didn't look up from what I was reading as I spoke. I was in the middle of my own book, after all.

She groaned and flapped her arms around dramatically. "I was reading it, until I finished it!" she exclaimed. "You'll never believe the ending."

I cut her off with a glare. "Hey, I haven't finished it yet."

Frances pressed her lips together and then said, "Well, hurry up." She looked at me as if I could magically pull the book out and be done with it.

"I've got to finish this one first," I told her.

"You've read that 500 times, Josephine."

"That doesn't matter," I said, holding the book to my chest protectively. Frances wasn't one of the types that liked rereading books, and we would never understand each other's preferences.

"Finish it later," she whined.

"Fine, we can go for a picnic," I said, knowing that was what she was trying to get at.

She popped up, grinning. "I'll go get my coat!"

After bookmarking it, I put on my boots and a coat. After zipping it up, I wrapped my black and white scarf around my neck and tucked in the ends.

"Are you ready yet?" Frances said, appearing back in my doorway. She was dressed in bright pink jeans and a floral shirt with her bright pink rain jacket and a scarf. A new book was tucked under one arm and a large picnic basket rested in the crook of the other arm.

"Where did you even get that thing?" I asked.

"The housekeeper gave it to me. It's already full. She made it for us."

"This was a well orchestrated plan, I see." I hadn't seen the housekeeper today, but it was probably for the best. I had a lot of things that I wanted to say to her that I probably shouldn't say to the person hosting me and Frances for several more days.

She smiled, pleased with herself. "I'm good, I know."

"Got a blanket?" I asked.

"Can't we just go to the meadows off to the side of the house?" I said, stopping outside the rear of the house. I had somehow already managed to end up with the (very heavy) picnic hamper.

"No," she whined. "I want to find that circle thing."

"I've gotten lost like 30 times. Please forgive me if I don't want to get lost again."

"It was dark then," Frances said, going into full-scale pout as she stuck out her lip. "It's going to be light out for hours and hours." I simply stared at her, knowing that I had lost this battle the moment that it had started (did I ever win anything with her?). "Please, please, please? Pretty please? I won't bother you about Divergent until you're done with your other book, I promise. And we'll come back way before dark, since you're now afraid of the dark."

I was not afraid of the dark, I wanted to say.

I sighed and she smiled, knowing that she had won. "Fine, let's go," I said. "But if we get lost or kidnapped or killed... I'll smother you myself."

"So, where did she say this circle thing thing is again?" she asked me.

It ended up being not that far from the Lodge, even though you wouldn't know it by the amount of time it took. It was up a hill (I finally remembered Kassidy having said that). What we first noticed was the evenly-planted rows of oak trees. They were massive. If we each placed our arms around one side, we wouldn't be able to reach the other's fingers. It was dark under the trees, as the tops had grown together and formed a barricade.

"This is weird," Frances whispered. Like an actual whisper, not her normal whisper. We both felt a little weirded out, as if we weren't supposed to be here.

"Isn't it winter?" I asked her, figuring out what was so bizarre about this.

She nodded. "Yeah. Everything is supposed to be dead."

The trees got closer and closer together, until we had to walk through the last ring single-file just to make it past. Their branches were grown together in most places, making it difficult to find a space to cross. Frances was content to barge through, but I didn't feel right about harming the trees just because I was too lazy to find a better spot to cross.

When we finally got through to the other side, we found ourselves in the druid circle. The circle, which had to be at least 50 feet across (60? 70? I wasn't good at estimating distances), was essentially walled-in by the hoary trees. The ground was lush green grass, dappled with white lilies.

I walked to the middle of turf and put down the basket.

"This is more like fairies than druids," I said. Whatever this was... it couldn't be explained by anything that I knew. Mother Nature didn't take small spaces and isolate them from the laws of its own doing.

"Maybe it's fairies," she said.

I knew she was making fun of me, but I ignored her and said, "If there was ever a thing to make me believe in fairies." Shaking my head, I opened up the basket and tossed the blanket at Frances. While she unfolded it and laid it down, I started looking through our basket and seeing what had been packed for us.

"What do we got?" Frances asked excitedly, peering into the wicker hamper from the blanket.

"Quite a feast, it looks." Sandwiches wrapped in paper towels, apple slices in tupperware, and four scones. There was also some weird looking brown egg things.

"What are these?" I asked, holding it up.

Frances gasped and took it from me. "Scotch Eggs," she nearly yelled.

"What are scotch eggs?"

"How have you never eaten any?" She took a bite, closing her eyes in delight.

She showed me the half that she hadn't eaten. It looked like a hard-boiled egg inside breadcrumbs. "It's a hard-boiled egg that's wrapped in sausage and then coated with fried breadcrumbs."

So, basically exactly what it looked like.

I took the half and bit into it while Frances watched, waiting for my reaction with baited breath. "That's pretty good," I said. I like hard-boiled eggs well enough.

"1 point for British food. I'll convert you eventually." Frances really liked British food.

"I'm craving a White Castle cheeseburger so bad, you have no idea," I said.

"Don't mention such crass food in front of our British picnic, Josephine."

We divvied out the food, putting them on the checkered fabric napkins we spread out on our laps (I had found them in the basket upon further investigation).

"Have a lemonade," I said, handing her one of the two swing-top glass bottles. We popped the tops and ate our sandwiches quietly.

"I'm pretty sure that bird is watching us," Frances said. I looked over to where she was looking. There was a falcon sitting in the tree. "Don't birds fly South for the winter?"

I shrugged. "I'm not up-to-date on migratory patterns of European falcons, unfortunately, Frances."

"That's like a hobby, right?" she said.

I gave her an eyebrow. "What have you been reading? The West Midland's Guide to Bird Watching?"

"I saw it on a poster in the hotel gift shop," she admitted.

I shook my head and went back to eating my sandwich, eyeing the bird.

"Josephine," Frances whispered a while later when he had finished our food. Our napkins sat empty in our laps. We weren't doing anything at all- just quietly sitting like we were in a trance.

"Yeah?" I said, whispering also for some reason. It felt almost rude to be loud here.

"Have you noticed how quiet it is?"

"Yeah". There was absolutely no sound. The birds had been chirping a bit while we walked here, but as soon as we entered the circle, it had all stopped. "This place kind of freaks me out," I whispered. My head felt fuzzy.

She nodded. "Me, too."

I took another drink of my lemonade. I didn't really feel like moving, truth be told. Frances toppled down to the blanket. "I'm really sleepy," she said, eyes already closed.

Sleeping sounded good. I laid my head down on the blanket, and I was asleep instantly.

My stomach twisted inside out. I was pretty sure that that was impossible, but that's sure how it felt. I reflexively curled into a ball, barely awake. Razors were shredding the inside of my stomach. The pain was the only thing I could think about. I reached out a hand, feeling for Frances, anything. I hit grass instead and my nails dug into the turf.

Pushing my self onto all fours, I opened my eyes for the first time. It was dark out, but even that small amount of light stung my eyes. I clenched them closed again. I was vaguely aware of the sounds of footsteps approaching.

All the sudden I was filled with the certainty that all I needed to do was get out of the circle. A small voice in my head commanded me: crawl one step, move one hand, then one knee, like a small child. I didn't have enough energy left, I was sure.

I really didn't want to (all I wanted to do was lay down and sleep) but I knew that the only way the pain would stop is if I could get to the edge of the circle. I would do anything to make the pain stop. The exact spot where I crossed over the line, I was positive of, for it felt like all the tension left my body. I collapsed on the ground.


	11. Marak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josephine meets Marak

Marak Orange-eyes looked down at the two girls in wonder. Magrinta had been watching them all day, perched in the trees in her bird-form. It was early afternoon when they had wandered out; dark had fallen an hour since now. Why would they still be out here? Marak had a feeling that he knew why.

Picking up the glass bottle, he sniffed the remaining yellow liquid.

"Hm," he said.

"What is it, sir?" his goblin apprentice, Robelde, said.

"Human magic," he said sarcastically. "A sleeping potion."

"Why would someone do that?" the small creature asked.

"I don't know, Robelde," he said, wondering the same thing himself.

Josephine, the runner with the same skin color as him, had a pained expression on her face. The orange-eyed goblin leaned down and touched her forehead. Through a sheen of sweat on her skin, he could feel heat. A crease formed between his eyebrows. The other girl, in the brightest pink that he had ever seen (yet alone in the form of skinny jeans), looked perfectly fine.

Marak felt the moment that Josephine awoke. Part of his magic abilities were that he could read the minds of those he wished (some were powerful enough to have training against it, but none that he had ever encountered). He felt the sharp pain stab at her stomach, and watched down at her with a curious expression as she rolled into a ball. Something was very wrong, he knew, but he didn't have much experience with human illnesses.

"Magrinta?" he said, looking to the dwarf who stood right outside the truce circle. She had changed from her bird-form into her normal form, standing now about 4 feet tall. She was thin for a dwarf, and young for such an accomplished healer (her master had died unexpectedly, and it had fallen to her the place most would have another 10 years to prepare for).

"She must be allergic to something in the sleeping potion, sir," she said, worry evident on her face as she watched the human girl roll onto her stomach and reach out for the human next to her.

He had no worries that he wouldn't be able to heal her, but he couldn't do it here; magic didn't work inside the bounds of the circle. This was the Elves and Goblins Truce Circle. No force, whether it be physical or magical, could be used here. But this also meant that he could not pick her up and carry her out. She would refuse in her delirious state, and the protective magic would respond accordingly.

However, that didn't mean that she couldn't be persuaded. Elves and goblins weren't susceptible to persuasion spells, so there was no protection against them. Humans, on the other hand, were easily manipulated.

"Josephine," he said, voice low. He walked slowly around so he was facing her. "Move toward me. You want the pain to stop. First one hand, then one knee," he said. Her arms shook as she held herself up. He stepped back as she moved towards him. "You want to keep moving. You want to make the pain stop."

It was a slow, arduous process. Although she couldn't consciously be resisting him (though as a full-blooded human that meant little), the sleeping potion had been strong. The other human would probably be asleep for hours still unless he intervened. Her whole body was begging her to collapse.

She did just that when she was about halfway across the line.

Robelde placed Marak's bag next to Magrinta. Marak picked up the human and placed her a few feet outside of the perimeter.

His people were unchanging, and set into their old ways. This included their fashion sense. For a creature that had grown up seeing long dresses and cloaks, these human fashions seemed... lacking.

Josephine wore a lot of dresses, at least, not that the female creatures in his kingdom didn't wear pants. The tightness of her running clothes made everyone uncomfortable and even this knee-length dress was too short for his sense of normal. Her current outfit was black with a floral design, with wore skin-colored tights and black boots.

A grimace appeared on her face. The apprentice placed his hands on either side of her head, pausing a moment for the desired effect to take place.

Working efficiently, Marak took out two corked glass bottles and pulled out the stopper on one. One arm went behind her neck, supporting her head. He held the vial to her lips. "You want to drink this," he told her. Whether it was an automatic response to part her lips or a result of his words, he wasn't sure, but he didn't care. She swallowed the contents of the first one, then the second.

"Why would someone do this?" Magrinta said. "And who?"

Why would someone do this? He severely doubted that either one of the girls would do this. There had been a boy- her brother- but not only did it not make sense for him to drug his sister, he had stormed out a few days before.

"What if they do it again? What if they harm them?" Robelde said, clearly worried. One of these two would be the next King's Wife (though everyone was sure who he would pick). If someone was trying to hurt them, they couldn't allow that.

Marak was thinking the same things, but he kept it to himself.

"Wouldn't it be pertinent to end this now?" the dwarf said softly.

"She's not old enough," he said. Close, he could tell, but not quite. And if he took her, they would be immediately married. If he thought her in real, imminent danger, he would take her this moment. It wasn't forbidden to take brides below a certain age, but it was discouraged. If he could wait the small amount of time left, he would.

*I'm going to vomit.

The thought was clear and concise. Marak, still cradling her head in his arms, sat her up. She pushed herself away and made it to the nearby bush before emptying the contents of her stomach.

"Gross," he heard her whisper as she wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her coat.

She turned, relaxing on the ground as she sat. The three creatures watched as the human took in them all. Magrinta and Robelde looked human enough, besides their short stature, but Marak was distinctively goblin. A pinched, disgusted look came over her face.

The goblin king contained a smile as she leaned over and puked into the bushes again. When she looked back, she sat there for a moment in disbelief as she processed that they were really there, really real.

"No, not a hallucination," Marak said, reading her thoughts.

"That's great," she finally managed to say. "I normally like being right, but I would have taken a loss on this one."

Marak could tell that the human was trying very hard to control her emotions. The look on her face from right before she had vomited the second time came back on her face. She was shutting down emotionally.

There was a reason that he had wanted to wait, and not just because she was still a little bit too young. Humans were completely devoid of magic, of even the basic knowledge of its existence. They thought that they were the only thing out there.

If he had taken her the first night that she had gotten here, she would have shut down completely to deal with the stress. It wouldn't be as bad for her now, because she'd have some time to deal with the idea. She was reacting pretty well to them right now, all things considered. At least she hadn't started to cry.

There was always the chance that she could escape, for no doubt that she would try, but Marak didn't have any intentions of letting that happen.

Marak watched her for a moment, seeing if she'd throw up again or snap herself out of it. It didn't appear that she would. He reached up a hand, laying his fingers on the side of her face and caught her as she tumbled to the forest floor.


	12. Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marak and Joey talk.

When I woke up, I realized it was nighttime. The sky was filled with a thousand stars and part of me just wanted to lay on the blanket and watch them. It was so bright in the city, even at night. The perpetual cloudiness of Washington ruined most nights for real stargazing, even when they weren't in the city.

It took me a second to realize why it was dark. I sat up and rubbed my forehead with my fingers, which were freezing despite the gloves I was wear. I could see my breath.

A million things were rushing through my head, but I felt almost drunk. I had developed the ability to push everything from my head and to simply exist. It had started when my mom died, just to make it through the day, but once I started dating Gavin, I had perfected the skill.

I would think about everything that just happened when I got home.

Frances was still passed out on the blanket. What had happened?

"Frances," I said. I leaned over and grabbed her shoulders. "Frances, wake up." She didn't stir. "Come on. It's freezing out here. I'm not dragging you back." I rolled her over, not in the mood to let her wake up slowly.

I heard her say something as she awoke. She pushed herself up with both arms and rolled back into a sitting position.

"Joey?" she said, looking around. "It's night?"

"Yup. Get up. Let's go." I stood and pulled the blanket out from underneath her and started to fold it up.

"It was like, noon, when we got here," she said, still sitting there.

"I know. It's getting late." I put the blanket in the basket. I wanted to be home, right now. My hands were shaking.

"We just took like a six hour nap?" she said.

"Apparently."

"Wish it would have been a better one. I feel like shit," she said, her face pinched.

"I do, too. Let's get back." I shoved everything back into the basket, unable to care if I broke or spilled anything.

"There's grass in your hair," Frances teased me.

That morning, Frances and I had played around with my hair. Her hair was smooth and silky looking, but I liked my curls. I looked a lot different with straight hair. Using my free hand, I ruffled my hair, which was left to be loose. Now I would have to shower, which would ruin my curls.

As we approached the stairs, I eyed the door. If it was locked, I was gonna flip. I put my hand on the door handle and pressed, but the door didn't open. I stood at the entryway, eyes closed, and took a deep breath. Count to five, I told myself.

I heard the sound of the deadbolt sliding. I stiffened. I slowly looked behind me into the forest. This was in vain; there was nothing that I could see.

"Can we go inside, please, Joey?" Frances said. She had a hand on her forehead. I had a headache myself. I wanted to go to sleep.

I was afraid to go to sleep.

I opened the door, looking around, but there was no one in the lower floor to be seen that could have unlocked it. We took our boots off at the door and I locked the deadbolt behind me. Now I knew for sure that something had taken place- I couldn't say the word magic- but I still felt better with my little human measure.

Kassidy was coming down the stairs.

"Hey, guys," she said, smiling. "You were gone for a long time."

"Took a little unintended nap," I said.

"I've got a killer headache," Frances said.

"Me, too," I said. I lugged the basket into the kitchen and put it down on the counter. I was *not taking care of it.

I got me and Frances medication for our headaches and we headed upstairs, saying goodnight to Kassidy.

Once in my room, I closed the door behind me. Back to it, I slid down to the floor and put my head between my knees. I was trembling so badly that I felt like someone had put both hands on my shoulders and was trying to shake me awake.

I cried into my hands, not wanting to alert Frances or wake her up.

When I was done, I wiped my face with the sleeve of my jacket. There were grass stains on the knees of my tights. I frowned. Grass stains were hard to get out of clothing.

I got up from the floor and sat down on my bed. I took off my boots and then my tights. The front of my dress had a zipper that went down the front, which I undid. I hung it up in my closet and put on sweats.

A few hours later, I lay in bed, unable to sleep. The lamp next to my bed cast a yellow light over part of the massive bed. Visible below the sleeves of my t-shirt were faint green-yellowing bruises from my brother. I touched my finger to the discolored skin, tracing where his fingers had left marks.

I got the same feeling had been getting ever since I got here. "Are you in my room?" I said, then immediately felt kind of crazy. "Get out of my room." I looked around, but I didn't see anyone.

"I'm not in your room," he said matter-of-factly.

I raised an eyebrow. "Then where-". My mouth formed a little 'o' as I saw where the goblin was. I scrambled off the bed, coming around to face the mirror. Looking behind me, I didn't see him. "Are you in the mirror?" I asked, one hand on my head.

"Something like that," he said.

"That's really... cool. Really creepy, actually, but really cool at the same time." The whole thing was so bizarre that I wasn't sure quite how to think of it. This fell 100% within the realm of creepy, but I was so awestruck by it that I was willing to let it slide.

He pulled up a chair in his mirror-world and sat down like this was normal.

"Have a seat," he said, sweeping out his hand.

"You're in my room," I muttered, but pulled up the bench and sat on it, leaning my back against the bed post. This was sure to be the most interesting conversation I'd ever had.

"I saw your brother grab you, and I saw the memory. Who was that?" His words were soft.

I didn't want to talk about Gavin. I didn't want to think about him. I absent-mindedly rubbed my shoulder.

"Were you dating him?" he asked.

I nodded, then sighed heavily and rubbed my face. "We're not discussing this." I was not discussing this with anyone, especially not a goblin. I didn't even want to think the word. I had a hard time looking at him.

"Somebody drugged you and your friend. Who do you think would do that?" he asked me.

"The housekeeper made us the lunch," I said. "But why would she drug us?"

"She has a daughter about your age," he said. Was he asking me? Telling me?

"Kassidy, yes. She's like 16. So?" I said.

"The housekeeper's lived here her whole life," he said, voice quiet like he was speaking to himself. "She knows."

"She knows what?" I said. About him?

Oh.

But what did that have to do with me?

His eyes refocused on mine. It was hard to get used to the bright orange of his iris'. I had a hard time holding them, but I forced myself to focus on them as well I could. There was a weird grin on his face.

"Let me tell you who I am," he said. I crossed my arms, waiting. "My name is Marak, and I am a direct descendant of the First Fathers of the Goblin race."

I groaned. "Oh my god." I stood up, turning my back on him. "You're the goblin king, aren't you?" I said. "Oh, please say no." I had seen too many movies to not know where this was going.

"In every generation, ever since the beginning, the King's Wife has come from the surface. She bears only one child. That child is always a son. Each son has become Marak. Without the King, the race would be lost."

"No," I said. "Mm-mh. No." I shook my head.

"No?" he repeated, his head tilting to the side slightly.

"I said no. It's a pretty basic concept," I said. "I'm not going to marry you and have your freaky goblin child." I was definitely not going to have sex with him.

"Sit down, Josephine," he said. I complied, glaring at him through the mirror. "I'm not asking for your permission. I just thought you'd do better if you knew what was going to happen."

"I don't want to marry you," I said, pretty confident that he didn't care in that matter.

"The King's Wife is always a captured bride. I'm not offended by your refusal. There aren't exactly volunteers."

"Ehhh," I said. "Have you actually tried? I think you should try that first."

He chuckled, looking down at the ground for a moment before looking back up at me. "I like you. You're smart, quick to catch on. Certainly pretty enough, and you do entertain me so."

"Um," I said, trying to think of something. "You know, I wouldn't want to marry me."

"Oh?" he said with an amused expression. He leaned one elbow against the desk to support his head. "Why's that?"

"I am a total slut," I said. "I sleep with everyone. Who would want that?"

He laughed at me. "Really? How many guys is 'everyone'?"

"Like a dozen," I said.

"I can tell when you're lying, by the way."

"Fine. Four." I crossed my arms over my chest.

He sat up, the expression on his face changing. "Which one was Gavin?"

I flinched. "The fourth." The room went cold.

He nodded solemnly, as if this explained all his questions. "Back to our original discussion: the housekeeper."

"Yes, so you're the goblin king. She knows. This relates how?" I kneaded my forehead with my knuckles, feeling really crazy. I couldn't believe that those words could come out of my mouth non-sarcastically.

"She's got a daughter," he said.

The stargazing is good at night in the druid circle, she had said. You won't let me out of the house after dark, and you're recommending stargazing? Kassidy had said.

The trails are good for running on.

The housekeeper made the picnic basket for us.

"She set us up," I whispered.

"Sure did," he agreed. "Quite a plan, too. Gave me several good opportunities to take you. Your time here is ending soon. She's panicking. She didn't know that you'd be allergic to whatever was in the sleeping potion, however. You're lucky that I was there."I stared dumbfounded at him. "What?"

"I'm pretty sure that she wouldn't have drugged me had you not existed."

He shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I've known about Kassidy since she was a baby. She keeps her inside, but that doesn't stop much if I wanted Kassidy."

"Why don't you want her? Why me and not her? Not that I want to sacrifice her," I rushed to say. I felt it was kind of a valid question, though.

"She can't carry children," he said harshly.

"Oh," I said. "But how do you even know that?"

"There are ways of testing," he said.

"I could be infertile," I pointed out.

"You're not," he said simply.

I wanted to ask, but I really didn't want to know. This was all really getting to be too much. I just wanted to go to sleep. I would figure it all out in the morning. What was to stop me from just leaving during the day?

"I'm being compassionate," he said. I frowned, assuming that he had just read my mind or something of the sort. "I could take you this very minute."

"I'm having a hard time finding compassion," I said.

"I could have taken you or Frances that first night, but I wanted you to get used to the idea. Humans don't respond well to stress."

"Yeah, why me? Why not Frances?" I decided to ignore the last part of that.

"Frances would work just as well as you. I just like you more."

"That's great." Really great. Being kidnapped would be a great finale to a string of bad relationships.

"She's a lesbian," I said. At least I was straight, not that I thought I'd ever fall in love with him.

"It doesn't matter," he said. "Either of you will work."


	13. Ice Skating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frances convinces Joey to go ice skating, and Frances is called back home.

Frances woke me up the next morning by jumping onto my bed. "Everything has frozen over!" she declared happily.

"So?" I asked, pulling the blankets over my head. I hadn't slept well last night, but at least no nightmares.

"The lake is frozen. Ice skating on a lake. Doesn't that sound like fun?" she said, shaking me. "It's so romantically British. I haven't skated in years, but Kassidy has an extra pair. Get up, we're going."

"That's not British at all. You're thinking Anna Karenina."

"They do it in Little House on the Prairie."

"Laura Ingalls Wilder lived in America, Frances," I said, groaning.

"Close enough. Get up. Let's go."

20 minutes later, I was dressed and downstairs. The housekeeper was in the kitchen, making up lunches. She smiled at me and said, "Good morning."

"Good morning," I muttered, taking an apple slice from Frances' plate and breaking it in half. I didn't want to look at her, much less talk to her. She had attempted to/succeeded in sacrificing me. The events of the previous day and night were still kind of jumbled in my head, like maybe I had imagined the whole thing.

"Hope you didn't plan on going to town today," Kassidy said to her mom. "Jeffrey Evans said that a huge tree fell down on the road out."

Did goblins control weather? I felt that this was deliberate.

We heard honking from outside. "Let's go," Kassidy said. "Jeffrey is here."

Frances shoved a pair of skates in my hand before we hustled out the door.

We packed into the backseat of the old car, skates and lunches in hand. It was about a 10 minute drive from The Lodge to Hollow Lake, going slow in the snow.

There were a dozen other people there, mostly boys, but a few girls that were pretty young.

"What, is this town all boys?" Frances said, noting the outstanding ratio.

"All the girls are pretty much still at school," Jeffrey answered.

"Oh," we answered in unison. We had both forgotten. "We don't really have those in America." There were a few, but most kids didn't live on campus in high school, at least not where we were from.

"My sister comes home pretty soon," he said. "Kassidy here got lucky."

We looked at her for explanation. "The school flooded real bad. We were only a week away from break anyways, so they sent us all home."

It explained how they managed to keep the girls safe for the majority of the year. During the summer, the days would be longer. Not that it really mattered, I reminded myself, since the Goblin King knew about all of them anyways. Why me? I asked myself again. There had to be several girls here who would fit the qualifications.

The lake had frozen over, I could see, but I eyed it warily. There were people already skating, but I didn't trust frozen lakes (I had seen too many movies where a kid falls through and drowns. I didn't think that I was about to find out I had Jumper skills, either).

"You sure this lake is safe?" I asked Jeffrey.

"We skate on it all the time during winter," he assured me.

"This will be like that time we were in New York," Frances said.

"I wasn't afraid of falling through the ice there," I said.

"Lighten up. You'll be fine." She slung an arm over my shoulder and pulled me down the snowy bank. I slowly laced up my skates. Over the sounds of giggling children, a bird wouldn't stop squawking. I glanced up from my laces and saw that bird. I knew from last night that that wasn't a normal bird, but that skinny dwarf from last night. Now at least I knew that I wasn't really crazy- the bird was actually stalking me.

I looked out at the sky, taking a moment to realize what I had just thought. I looked back at my laces, a little in disbelief at what I was considering normal to think.

Kassidy and Frances, both of whom seemed to have innate talent with ice skating, were making circles. Kassidy had probably been skating here her whole life, and Frances had taken lessons for years. I didn't fall over, at least.

I looked back over at the bird. It flapped its wings at me (disapprovingly? I couldn't read bird body language). It certainly didn't seemed pleased. But I didn't really care what a dwarf-goblin bird thought of me.

"Do you even remember how to skate?" Frances teased me from a few feet away.

"Yes," I said. I pushed up from the bank and into a standing position.

I saw the blur in the corner of my eye as I started to move forward. The sickle-shape flew right in front of my face, coming close enough to graze my face. I screamed as I fell back, landing in the snow.

I lay in the snowy grass for several seconds, listening to the sounds of everyone laughing at me. I could hear Jeffrey in particular saying in between his bouts of laughter, "I've never seen a hobby do that!"

Finally, I sucked it up and returned to sitting. I started to unlace my skates, giving up.

"Don't let a bird discourage you," Frances said. I would never hear the end of this.

"I think I got the message," I muttered, pulling one skate off and replacing it with my boot. The snow was already soaking through my tangerine-orange dress.

"What?" she said with a laugh.

I shook my head. "Nothing." I pulled off the other skate. "I was never good at skating anyways." She pouted out her lip. "Go. I have fun just watching. Entertain me with your figure skating."

I glared up at where the falcon had landed back on its perch in the trees.

A little girl skated over to me and plopped down in the snow.

"Hello," she said.

"Hi."

"Tired?" I asked her.

"I think my feet are going to fall off," she said with a nod of her small blonde head.

"I doubt that," I comforted her. "What's your name?"

"Stella."

"My name's Josephine," I said.

"Nice to meet you," she said, smiling up at me.

"Nice to meet you, too," I said. "Who are you here with?"

"My brother Jeffrey."So this was the little girl I had seen in the picture. Jeffry was her brother? Mrs. Evans had decided to have another child pretty late.

I looked out to the lake and saw him with Kassidy towards the middle. "How old are you?"

"7 and three-quarters," she said.

We sat in silence after that, watching the other kids skate around. Jeffrey and Kassidy had obviously grown up skating, as they had a little routine they did. Frances and the other two were competing. It looked like a game of HORSE but on ice. Frances did some fancy twirl jump, then they would try to copy.

And everything was fine for about an hour until Jeffrey did a jump. He said something at Frances, then raced out a bit into the middle and completed the jump. But when his feet hit the ice, it splintered underneath him, then gave out. I saw him plunge into the icy water.

Stella screamed and jumped up, but I grabbed her before she could go back on the ice.

"Let me go!" she yelled, but I held onto her. It wouldn't make it any better for her to fall in after him. She struggled and cried, but I kept my grip.

I saw his hand come through the hole in the ice. Kassidy and Frances skated over to him, yelling at the others to get back. They both grabbed his arm and struggled to pull him up. I saw his head come above the ice. It would have been easier if he would have helped him, but he looked so shocked by what had just happened that he wasn't able to help.

They pulled him over the shelf of the ice and onto his stomach. This seemed to awaken him a bit. He slid back a few feet, but the girls grabbed his clothing and pulled him back from the hole, just in time before it collapsed. Two other boys skated out and grabbed him under his arms, pulling him to the bank.

I let Stella go after they had him back to the bank. They wrapped him in blankets and rushed him into a car. The two girls came to stand next to me, silent for once. One of the other boys gave us a ride back to the Lodge. We were all quiet.

As we got out of the car, I saw the housekeeper come from the house, phone in hand. "Frances, it's your parents," she said. We both looked at each other in worry before she ran up the steps and took the phone. We didn't get a lot of calls. I talked to my dad every few days, but he was only in London.

They talked briefly before Frances covered her mouth and sat down on the cement steps. I waited until she was done talking to approach her. She stood up and I wrapped my arms around her. "What happened?" I asked her.

"It was my mom. They said Tracey got into a car accident and she's in the ICU. She said they've been trying to call for days but they couldn't get through." I bet the housekeeper was behind that one, too. With only one of us, the odds were worse. If only she knew the truth. I was furious, but I tried to contain it. Frances would understand why I was mad, nor did she need to know at this moment.

"I'll call the airlines," the housekeeper said, going back inside. Kassidy shuffled awkwardly next to us, wanting to say something but probably not knowing what.

I helped her pack up her stuff. She cried about her sister, and I wanted to do the same thing. I didn't want Frances to leave me. I didn't want to be here alone. If she left, and I couldn't get out, we would never see each other again. She would never know why I was gone, what had happened to me.

I hugged her on the steps as the taxicab pulled up, and there I couldn't not cry.

"Hey, I'll see you in like a week," she said, a little confused about my tears.

I nodded, though I had a sinking feeling that wasn't true. "Yeah, of course," I said. I held on to her. I wanted to take back every fight we ever had, every bad thing I had ever said. "Just be safe, okay?"

"I'll be fine," she said. I regained my composure enough to let her go. "You're just mad I'm going to miss your birthday."

"No, you're fine. It's not like it's a big one or anything," I said. I smiled, enjoying our banter, but I wondered if I'd even be here to celebrate it.

"5 days," she said. "So close to freedom."

As soon as she said the words, I remembered the conversation:

"She's too young," he had said, "almost there." They couldn't take me until I was 18, I realized. I looked up and saw the bird, where it always perched. It took off into the trees. Oh, I was so fucked.

"Freedom, yeah," I whispered.

She put her bags into the trunk and I let her leave, wanting nothing more than for her to be with me. She's safer this way, I told myself, but that didn't make me feel better.

That night, I sat on the couch downstairs, away from all mirrors, forcing myself to stay awake while I read a book. When dawn finally came, I collapsed on my bed, covered my head with a pillow, and cried myself to sleep.


	14. Clubbing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joey runs away

"Can you answer the door for me?" Kassidy said, up to her elbows in flour and bread dough. For Sunday dinner the next day she was making cinnamon bread, which made the whole house smell delicious, and I was very much behind this decision.

I put the first loaf in the oven, dusted my hands on my pants, and answered the door. "It's Jeffrey," I yelled to her.

"Tell him to come in," she yelled back.

I looked at him. "What she said." He smiled and undid his shoes, leaving them on the porch. "Glad that you didn't freeze to death, by the way."

"Me, too," he said with a laugh. He followed me into the kitchen. "Where's your mum?" he asked Kassidy.

"She's at the Hall cleaning . The Martin's return next week. You know she's got to dust everything at least once a day," Kassidy said, rolling her eyes.

"So," Jeffrey said, drawing out the word. We looked at him expectantly, long knowing what tone meant. "My parents and Stella are going to spend the night with my aunt. You two want to go to Coventry tonight?"

"Go out, you mean?" Kassidy said, already looking stressed.

"Yes." He saw the look on her face and hurried to rally his point. "Come on, Kass. You never go out. Remember last time we went out? You had so much fun. Your mum didn't even find out."

"You mean like go clubbing?" I asked, wondering if that was the British word for it. Kassidy looked ashamed. "You went out drinking with him? Do you have a fake ID?"

"No," she said, cheeks red.

"She does. Don't let her lie to you," Jeffrey said.

"Oh my god, Kassidy. You won't even step outside an hour before sunset," I said.

"It was like last summer. Give me a break. I did it one time," she said. "And I'm lucky my mum never found out or she'd have sent me to my aunt's in Edinburgh or something."

I could get out. As soon as I was off the grounds, I was safe. "It sounds like fun," I said to Kassidy. "Please. The drinking age is 21 in America. Take pity on me," I said.

"Do you have a fake ID? You're not 18 for another 3 days."

"Don't worry about me," I said. She looked down at her bread dough. "Please."

"Please," he chimed in.

"Ugh, fine," she said, but I thought she looked secretly pleased.

Several hours later, about a half hour before the sun would start to set, we climbed down the trellis off my room. I had my phone, passport, and wallet on me (inside my purse, of course). I couldn't risk taking anything else. Maybe when my dad was done killing me, I could get my stuff back somehow. I would rather be alive without my computer than kidnapped.

Kassidy had given me a red dress of hers that was just a little bit too tight. It covered most parts of the scar, but at this point, I didn't care if I had gone out in pasties.

We ran across the gravel path, getting into Jeffrey's car where he was parked. As I looked up, feeling a familiar presence, I saw the falcon sitting in the trees. I took one last look at it, feeling scared and a little bit hopeful, I got into the car.

"You okay?" Kassidy asked me, turning around from her seat in the front. "You look nervous."

"Nah, I'm fine. It wouldn't be the first time I snuck out," I said. Jeffrey took a flask from his jacket pocket and took a drink, which made me nervous. Hopefully we didn't crash and die or get pulled over.

I put my flats into my purse and pulled on my heels. I had a whole change of clothes in there. Thank god for large purses.

I didn't breathe until we were off the property. I relaxed, felt all of the stress come off of my shoulders. I was off of the hook. I could be free. I would never hear the word goblin again. This would all be a part of the past that I could never even discuss with a therapist about.

I planned on ditching them at the club. I would tell them that I was going to the airport, but say nothing more, just so they didn't search for me all night. It was about an hour to Coventry. We got into the club, no problem. I sipped on a coke, not wanting to drink anything. I hadn't been drinking alcohol since I the incident on Homecoming. Besides, it wouldn't do to show up at the airport and be drunk.

So when I ended up in the backseat of a police car two hours later, I threw up not from the amount of alcohol in my system, but from sheer terror.

"Isn't that Mr. Mallory?" I heard Kassidy say to Jeffrey about a half hour after we got there. I was just getting ready to ditch.

"What the hell," he said, grabbing her arm.

I looked over to see a man in a police uniform.

"Kass, we gotta go," he said.

"He's probably here for us. Bloody hell, Jeffrey. My mum's going to kill me," she said. We made our way through the crowd, trying to avoid us, but he spotted us.

The logical thing would be to just let him arrest us, since clearly they all knew each other. But I was not getting arrested and sent back to Hallow Hill. Arrest me. Anything other than go back there.

We went out a back door and into an alley.

"He saw us. We can't just run away," Kassidy said, voicing my thought.

"What's he gonna do? Arrest us? Your mum's pissed, but she didn't send him out here to take ya to jail," Jeffrey said.

I was panicking. I had to go. I couldn't be here. I took off my heels, then frantically shoved on my flats from my purse.

"I'm not getting arrested," I said. I started to take off down the alley way towards the street.

"Where are you going?" I heard Kassidy yell after me. "He's just gonna take us back, Joey."

I rounded the corner and nearly ran right into him.

The cop grabbed my arm. "Trying to run off, I see," he said.

I swallowed, all my bravery evaporated once my body kicked into its-a-freaking-cop mode.

He looked down the alley. "Jeffrey, Kassidy, you might as well come on down." They appeared a few seconds later.

He walked us to his patrol car and we lined up against the side of the car.

"I'm not going to arrest you, alright. I'll just take you back to your parents. What they'll do to you will be bad enough," he said, nodding at Kassidy, who looked like she was going to die.

The first thought that went through my mind was: punch him. Punch him. Assaulting an officer. Guaranteed jail.

I tried to muster the courage to do it, but I just couldn't find it in myself to punch him. He put me in the car first, then Jeffrey. He walked Kassidy around to the other side.

"You still got that flask on you?" I asked Jeffrey.

"Yeah," he said. He pulled it out of his jacket pocket.

I undid the cap and swallowed a mouthful then another.

"I didn't know you drank. You were drinking cola inside," he said, looking at me with a strange expression, probably surprised by how much I was drinking.

"I drink now," I said, taking another drink. The cop put Kassidy in the front seat and Jeffrey took the flask back from me, took a quick drink, and put it back in his coat pocket.

We drove in silence back home. I took my long-sleeve from my purse and put it on over my top. The purple was probably really ugly over the red, but I didn't care.

The police officer was actually a man who lived in the the Hallow Hill village.

"How'd you even find us?" Jeffrey asked from the back seat.

"Kassidy's mum called me," he said simply. How that explained how he had found what bar we were at, I wasn't sure, but I wasn't going to ask. And unless I was going crazy, I was pretty sure that he kept glancing up to the mirror to look at me.

When we arrived to the Lodge, he opened the door and helped me out.

"You have a daughter, don't you?" I said to him. I was a little bit tipsy. Was everyone in this town onto this? Was it some kind of adult club that met? At least they hadn't tied me up like a bad early 2000's horror movie against a tree.

He looked away, not answering the question. He took my upper arm once again and walked me to the stairs, deciding that I apparently needed more guidance than Kassidy. She had been silent the entire drive, knowing that her mother was going to kill her. At least she would probably loosen up once I had been kidnapped successfully.

Right before we got to the edge of the cement steps, he released my arm and said quietly, so quiet that I almost didn't hear him, "I'm sorry." I nodded.

I felt a little bit more sober once I saw the look on the housekeeper's face. I was definitely drunk, but not anywhere near drunk enough to deal with this. She was glaring at both of us with the epitome of Angry Mom. I would have felt ashamed if I had been a little bit more sober and little bit less angry at her.

Luckily for the abundance of skin that the tight red dress was showing off, she didn't make us stand outside while she yelled at us. We leaned against the wall next to the door inside. Kassidy stared at the floor, while I rubbed my forehead with my knuckle. She rambled on for what seemed like a forever. Maybe it was the alcohol or the fake concern, but I couldn't help but laugh. And when I started laughing, I couldn't stop.

Even Kassidy was staring at me by the time I managed to calm down.

"What is so funny about this?" the housekeeper said.

"I just really don't care about anything that is coming out of your mouth," I said. With that, I walked past her, up the stairs, and sat down on the edge of my bed. I pulled off my shoes, throwing them across the room.

I kept my dress on, too lazy to take it off. I collapsed on top of my blankets.

I woke up to my goblin friend. It was 5:30 am according to my clock when I managed to open my eyes enough to look. He was speaking really loud, although I wasn't sure what he was saying at first. I put a pillow over my head and held it down with my hands. His voice still carried through the feathers.

"Can you please just shut up?" I said. My head was pounding.

"Am I hurting your head from your drinking?" he asked.

"I've got a host of emotional problems, so if you're annoyed now, you should probably find someone else to kidnap," I said.

"No less than you deserve for what you did last night."

As a testament to how grumpy I was, I said, "Fuck off. You don't own me."

There were more loud noises (I wasn't sure quite what it was, but I assumed it had something to do with his magic and pissed-off attitude). "I could have dragged you underground that first night," he said.

"You keep saying that, but I don't believe. I think you're lying. You need me to be 18."

"Goblins don't lie. That's a human favorite," he said.

"Then what are you waiting for?" I asked angrily, sitting up in bed and shoving my hair back angrily, then promptly screamed. I had expected him to be in the mirror, but he wasn't. He was standing next to my bed. My heart lept into my throat, and I never moved so quickly in my life.

"I was going to let you have your last days, but look how you're reacting. You're not sleeping, you're drinking. It isn't healthy," he said. His arms were crossed over his chest. "The sooner that it's over and you accept what's happening, the better." I was huddled at the very far edge corner of the bed from him.

I was going to pass out, I was pretty sure, at how fast my heart was beating. My whole body was screaming for me to run, but I didn't have anywhere to go. The housekeeper would hand me over to him more than she would help me (not that she possessed the ability to assist me in getting away, even if she had wanted to).

"I recant my previous statement. Waiting was good," I said, struggling to come up with something to say. Stall time, anything. "Waiting until 18 was good. 19 is even better."

He smiled at me. "You've always got something to say." He leaned over the bed, hand out, and I had the feeling I was going to fall asleep and wake up underground. I braced from it, but right before he touched me, there was a knock at the door. He looked up out of instinct, and I scurried off the bed so that I was standing on the other side. My dress was riding up my thighs.

"Josephine, it's your dad," the housekeeper said from the opposite side of the door.

I looked at him with narrowed eyes, daring him to do anything with her right there and me on the phone. I pulled down the hem of my tight red dress, opened the door, and grabbed the phone from her hand. I didn't bother with politeness anymore.

"Hi," I said. I sat down on the chair, already feeling tears in my eyes. I thought that I would never hear his voice again.

"Hey, kid," he said. "Sorry that it's so early. I have a business meeting in a few minutes. I don't have any meetings for Monday, not that anything special is going on that day," he said jokingly.

"Nothing at all," I said.

"Would you like it if I came down?" he said.

"Yes, please do. I miss you," I said.

"I miss you too, kiddo. We'll hang out and have cupcakes," he said.

"That sounds great, dad," I said. I wiped a tear from my cheek, aware that I was lying to him.

"Your uncle is also coming for a visit to look at the place. I know he's not your favorite, but that should be interesting."

My uncle. Great. I wouldn't be sad to miss that one. "Sounds... interesting," I agreed.

"I've got to go. I love you."

"I love you too, dad."

"I'll see you in two days, Joey."

"Two days," I whispered, but the line was already dead.

I looked up at the goblin king, tears in my eyes.

"No," he said simply.

"Two days. My birthday is tomorrow. Please give me this before you ruin my life," I said.

"No. I don't trust you. You're a mess. I thought you were handling this pretty well, but apparently not, Josephine," he said.

"I'm not saying you should. Give me a chance to say goodbye to him. It's just until tomorrow night." I would beg for this last chance to see my dad if I had to.

He considered this for a second, watching me. "Magrinta isn't the only one who watches you during the day. You step 10 feet from this house and they will take you. Do you understand?" he said.

I nodded, though I wondered if they were so good at guarding me, how did I manage to simply drive away from Magrinta?

"She got in trouble for that one," he said. I was annoyed that he could read my mind, but I didn't say anything, knowing he knew it pissed me off. "It won't happen again."


	15. Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joey spends her last night above ground with her dad, and an unexpected turn of events.

I spent my last morning above ground watching the sun rise from the back porch with a cup of coffee in hand. I was aware that there were probably any number of goblin eyes watching me, but I focused on finishing my book in the early morning light.

When I was done, I dressed myself in my best dress- a navy frock with a folded collar and buttons on the side, to more specific. I did my hair up, painted my nails, shaved my legs, and ate all of the cookies in the cookie jar- basically everything that one should do on the night before they died.

I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to die, per se, but living life underground didn't sound particularly pleasant.

How did people even live underground? I couldn't help but imagine stalagmites and drippy caverns. I tried to reason with myself that Marak seemed pretty civilized, but I couldn't comprehend a full underground city (something along the lines of City of Embers). I guess I would find out tonight, I thought unhappily.

Kassidy and her mom both went to the Hall to prepare for the family coming back (also to give me my time with my dad, I suspected). My dad arrived around noon, which was only about 4 hours until the sunset. 4 hours above ground, I realized, but I tried to not think about it.

My time with my dad went way too quickly. We sat on the back porch, each with a cupcake. We shoved 18 candles into one rose-decorated cupcake. I held it away from myself as he lit them, remarking that it looked like one big candle and a fire-safety hazard.

I asked about Jensen, and he told me that he had made it home, and was staying with his friend. He had gone to his wrestling tournament and taken second, which was amazing. Frances' sister was doing better and was out of ICU. Jensen was home. Frances was safe. I had said goodbye to my father. Everything was wrapping up, and it took everything I had not to succumb to a panic attack.

He gave me a locket, which I immediately recognized as my mother's. It was pretty old, having been in the family for a few generations. It had a little rose etched into the silver case. I opened it up, surprised to find new pictures in it.

"Frances helped me pick out pictures, since you know I'm helpless at these things," my dad said. It was a double-sided locket, meaning that it had four tiny picture frames instead of two. One was of my mother and father; the second was of Jensen; third was of the four of us; and the last was of Frances.

I let him put it on me.

About a half hour before my father left, my uncle showed up. He had blondish hair and wore a suit, looking like the quintessential used car salesmen. Everything about him kind of weirded me out. I received him from the porch (although it was his house, I realized). I gave him an obligatory hug, but he seemed... weird. Too nice. Normally he was cordial at best, barely saying anything wasn't strictly required for a civil interaction. Maybe I was being paranoid, but he was looking at me with a strange look.

Whatever, I told myself. I wouldn't have to deal with him for long. I thanked him for letting me stay here, and bit my tongue to what I really wanted to say.

When it was time for my dad to leave, I hugged him much the same I had Frances. I regretted that Jensen and I had parted on such bad terms- after months of never wasting a goodbye, we messed up the only one we had left. We would both regret that for the rest of our lives. My dad patted me on the back.

"You okay Joey?" he asked, mirroring the speech and confused expression that Frances had had when she had driven away.

"Yeah," I lied. I couldn't tell him. Even if I wanted to, it wouldn't do any good. He couldn't do anything. He was going to go the rest of his life wondering what had happened to me. It was nearing time for the sunset.

"I'll be back in a week. Christmas at home this year," he said. That hurt. I hadn't thought about Christmas, coming up in a week. Holidays were already bad enough without Mom, now I would be gone too.

With this sobering thought, I said my goodbyes and wrapped my arms around my chest as watched him leave. I looked out into the dark areas of the forest before turning around and going inside.

As I planned to retire for the night and go upstairs awaiting my fate, there was a knock at the door. Neither my uncle or the housekeeper looked up from what they were doing, so I walked down the few stairs I had climbed and put my hand on the door knob. What if it was Marak in some kind of cruel joke? He wouldn't do that, I reasoned with myself. So I opened the door.

"Hello?" I said. The officer that had arrested me and Kassidy was the last I expected. He wasn't dressed in his police uniform, but I knew who he was anyways. I looked back, and both the adults were standing up in the living room. They didn't seem surprised. I got a creepy feeling.

"Uhhh," I said. Was I being arrested? What had I done? Could he arrest me for underage drinking that I had done 3 nights ago? I was legal age now. I highly doubted the judge would convict me.

He looked like he hadn't slept in a few days. He glanced nervously at the two adults then sighed and took out a pair of handcuffs. "Let's just get this done with."

"Um," I said, trying to think of something to say as he grabbed my upper arm and pulled it behind my back. He handcuffed the other hands so I was bound together. He led me out the front door. Luckily I still had my boots on from earlier.

I was going to jail. I was being arrested. Well, not really, because the goblins wouldn't let me get that far. "Can you arrest me for underage drinking three days afterwards?" I asked.

He didn't respond, but he didn't lead me to his squad car either. We started walking into the forest. Oh my god, I thought. This was not happening. My uncle and the housekeeper followed silently.

I kept walking, kind of dumb-founded.

I guess it didn't matter if I had tried to escape, because I was being gift-wrapped and hand-delivered. I bet the goblins are just watching from the darkness, wondering what is going on, I said to myself. Surely this wasn't normal for a King's Bride to be given up by other humans.

"I get why you're doing this," I said to the cop after a few minutes, trying to think of any logical reason that this could be happening but coming up with nothing. "And I get the housekeeper. You've both got daughters." I turned to glare at my uncle. "But why you? You're letting them do this? I'm your niece." Like what the actual hell.

My uncle had a smirk on his face, like I was dumb or something. "You never were that smart." I turned forward, knowing I should have expected that. I stumbled over a rock. Walking with your hands tied behind your back was harder that I had ever given it credit.

We veered off into the forest a bit. Marak, you can come end this any time, I thought. Was he just going to watch the whole thing from the darkness?

They pushed me back against a tree. The cop held me so I couldn't do anything while the housekeeper pulled a backpack off of her back. Where would I even run if I got out? I was just waiting to be picked up, anyways. My uncle pulled out rope.

"Really? You're going to tie me to a tree?" I felt like Andromeda tied to the front of the ship as sacrifice. At least I wasn't naked. And I kind of had my own Perseus, although Perseus was a hot demi-god, where as Marak was not so much. "A little too sacrificial lamb, don't you think?" I was wrong about the horror movie thought that I had sarcastically made to myself. They were literally going to tie me up like in a horror movie and let me die. Given, being kidnapped by Marak was a hell of a lot better than the monster that came out of the forest and *ate the girl.

I winced as he pulled on the ropes at my comment. The cop kept his eyes away from me, looking really guilty- as he should! My uncle came around to the front.

"You're not going to tell me why before you just leave me here?" I said.

I saw the housekeeper looking at my uncle. "Tell her," she said. "It doesn't matter if she knows now, does it? She's doing enough for this family."

This family?

Oh.

"Did you two-?" I looked between the two of them. "Oh my god." I'm sure the look on my face was beautiful. They didn't deny it. "Ew. I mean, I like Kassidy well enough. You're not the best aunt I ever had, though," I told her. She didn't look offended. I didn't want to think about the fact that they had been... and created Kassidy. "This still doesn't add up. What do you care for Kassidy, when she doesn't even know you're her dad? I'm your niece. You know me way better. You don't even live in this country most of the time."

I leaned my head back against the tree, watching him. I couldn't believe this was happening. Goblins, that I could get. This was quite out of my imagination.

"It wasn't about Kassidy." He held up a bandana. How cliche, I thought. "Enough talking." As he approached me, he said, "You don't deserve to live anyways. You let my sister die. All you had to do was watch her for one night before I got there." He shoved the handkerchief between my teeth and moved closer to tie it behind my head. I brought my head forward quickly, smashing into his nose.

"Fuck you," I said. "I was 16." I considered my action justifiable.

He stumbled back, holding onto his bleeding nose. My forehead hurt where I had hit him, but I felt it was worth it. He raised his hand to strike me, but before he could, someone grabbed his wrist.

He looked behind him, and I think he thought it was the cop restraining him by the look on his face when he turned around. I couldn't help but laugh when the housekeeper screamed. Even my uncle screamed, whereas the cop just turned a ghostly shade of white.

This was a goblin I didn't know. I had met the dwarf Magrinta, and the small goblin whose name was Robelde I was pretty sure, but they had both been short. This one was as tall as the Goblin King, and not so bad looking for a goblin (I hadn't seen a lot of goblins, but this one looked pretty okay). His fur was a weird, off-white color that didn't look natural, but his face was normal enough, save for the, well, fur. He looked kind of like a yeti, I supposed. A civilized Yeti wearing a cloak and boots.

Marak moved from the shadows. He was wearing his typical outfit of black, I noted. I wondered if he ever wore anything different, but I doubted it, as the Yeti goblin was wearing the same outfit. Small Robelde wore his own distinct little outfit, which made him look very scholarly, I thought.

The little goblin came up to me and touched the ropes with his finger. They fell around me in a puddle. I stepped away from the tree. He reached up, barely able, and touched the handcuffs. They fell off completely. I rubbed my wrists and rolled my shoulders.

"Ah, thank you," I said, deciding this was the best thing to do, and I was just truly thankful for his small, kind gesture. It would be easier to be angry if it were the humans helping me out and not the goblins. At this moment, I preferred the goblins to the humans. I followed the little creature between the two humans, aware of their astonished looks, and crossed onto the goblin side, coming to stand next to Marak. I figured I wasn't going to get out of it.

"Not quite how I imagined that to go down," I said.

He smiled, and I assumed he was pleased at my amiable attitude towards him. "Me neither," he admitted. "But humans are always full of interesting surprises."

"Could have been a little quicker," I muttered, feeling the bruise forming around my wrists already. He didn't say anything, but I didn't push it. He had his reasons, if not just good ol' curiosity at whatever it was the humans were doing with me.

"Wait a second," I said before Marak could say anything. "You said this wasn't about Kassidy. So it was about me. Are you seriously telling me that you begged my dad to bring me here?" My dad had made a comment earlier before we had gotten here that my Uncle had been very *persistent about us staying here. "And not to save Kassidy, but because of my mom? Haven't I suffered enough?"

My uncle seemed much less prone to talk when he was being held by a goblin, but I could tell by the look on his face that I was right. "I'm supposed to be in London!" I yelled at him. All of this because of... I didn't want to think about it. I wanted to drown myself in ice cream and sleep for a year.

Marak put his hand on my shoulder, and I felt my anger ebb out a bit. I ran my hand through my hair before crossing my arms across my chest, determined to control myself.

I could be in London right now; I wanted to scream. I could think of 100 wonderful things that Jensen, Frances, and I could be doing in London at this very moment.

I should never have been here. I could have stayed in America. I could have gone to London, hung out with Frances and been a tourist. I was never going to finish high school or walk with my class or go to Senior prom or walk down the aisle with my dad. I'm sure there was at least a million dumb things I hadn't even thought of yet that I would never do, all because of my own Uncle.

I was definitely starting to panic. Marak's hand was still on my shoulder and I felt the panic also start to fade, which just made me panic more. He looked down at me. "Let's go," he said. "Loewen will take care of your uncle." I assumed Loewen was the Yeti goblin.

I looked up into my uncle's white face and then turned my back to him. I was so tired. I wanted this all to be over. Stressing and crying, the nightmares and the fear- that was one part of the surface that I wouldn't miss. "I don't care what you do to him."


	16. Wedding Jitters

While I hadn't really expected stalactites, I hadn't been expecting what I saw. We passed through an iron door into a corridor and I stopped for a moment, awestruck. One side of the corridor was completely doors, but the other side was ceiling-to-floor windows. I walked over to the windows, then realized that they weren't windows at all. There was no glass in the cut-outs and the holes started at about mid-thigh. Obviously there was no OSHA in the goblin's government, but the view was beautiful even with the small threat of falling to my death.

We were high above a bowl-shaped valley that was mostly too dark to see the fine details. Even in the dark, I could tell the shape from thousands of small, far away lights. How many people lived here? I wondered. I could also see the back of what I guessed was the palace (being the king of the goblins surely had to have its own royalty perks). It was a straight wall, several hundred feet at least, from top to bottom.

There was another large town nestled at the bottom of the walls. Waterways and roads cut across the open lands, distinguishable from what I imagined was lanterns or something of the sort that would alert the residents to the water. There were several towns that I could distinguish just from there. This place was so much more than I had imagined.

"Better than you had expected?" Marak said. He gently pulled me away from the ledge. I wasn't in danger of jumping, but I understood his uncertainty.

I simply nodded, not knowing what to say. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. It didn't look boring, at least

"What now?" I asked him as he led me away. I wondered what would be expected of me. I didn't feel tired anymore, since the overwhelming new environment. There had to be some kind of ceremony.

We started down a corridor. The windows disappeared completely, and quickly started to feel closed in. "Yes, there is a ceremony. You might balk at the word 'wedding'," he said.

"What is that supposed to mean?" I said. As if that answered my question or made me feel better.

We went down a set of stairs. The corridors started to get more rugged, resembling tunnels instead of caves. "The marriage of the King is the most important event in my race. The marriage is where the new King comes from, and that's how the magic continues for goblins. It tests you for certain qualifications, as well as protecting you. Once it's done, you'll never go above ground again. You're stuck here until you die."

Thinking of my mortality didn't please me. I had assumed as much, and this was something that I wanted to know, but his saying so right at that moment, before something awful was probably about to happen to me, didn't' seem like good timing. "You make it sound like some big awful doom," I said, still unsatisfied with his answer. What was the worst thing that they could do to me? It wasn't like they were going to chop off my arms and eat me.

He sighed, stopping at a large metal door and letting me into the room. This place looked more like what I thought the whole place would look like in my more pessimistic imaginations. It appeared as if someone had taken a huge ice cream scooper and scooped out jagged parts of the rock to form a room. There was only one light in the whole place, hanging from the ceiling. There was one chair in front of a shelf-like protrusion. I saw a goblet and a stack of shiny gold rings sitting on it.

"The ceremony is completely practical," he said, resuming his speech and ignoring what I said. He closed the door behind us. Laying his hands on the metal, he said something in his goblin language. The door clanked shut. He smiled at my startled expression. "I locked the door with magic," he said.. I was starting to get really annoyed with this trait of not telling me anything. I expected my kidnapper to have some manners.

I stared at him until he finally continued. "It's unpleasant for you, but it doesn't take that much time. The whole ceremony presumes that the bride is highly skilled in magic and very distraught. He said it as if the women were being silly. "You'll be bound both by magic and force." He picked up one of my hands. He took one of the gold circles and opened it up. He clicked it into place on my wrist. I held it up into the light. It hugged my wrist perfectly.

"No one will talk in a language that you understand. You won't be able to talk."

"Why?" I asked as he put one on my other wrist. I resisted the urge to try and stop him, knowing that it would do no use.

"Like I said, it's assuming that you've got lots of magic," he said patiently. "Without your words, you can't try any spells." I didn't have any magic as a human, obviously, but I understood the logic. "Take your tights off," he said. I took a step back from him. He held up one of two remaining circles. "I need to put this on your ankle," he said.

"Turn around," I said. It seemed too personal to take off my tights. It would feel like I was taking off my pants. I ignored his slightly irritated expression as he turned around. I undid my boots, the stripped off my tights and stuffed them into my boots.

He turned around as I sat down on the chair. He put one on my ankle while I asked, "But you're not answering what I really care about. What happens during the ceremony? Like, specifically." I stressed the last word. "And what if I fail one of the tests?"

"You're not going to die," he said simply. "And you're not going to fail."

"I mean, there's not going to be like blood involved or anything crazy?" I gave him a look that he ignored. This was going to be a serious problem if he kept deflecting my questions. Just because I wasn't going to die didn't mean I wasn't concerned about what they would do to me.

"Blood?" he repeated. I nodded. "Yeah, a little bit." He put the bracelet on the other ankle. "A snake. Nothing to be worried about." He got that smile back on his face. Normally he was so serious. It was nice to see that he wasn't completely severe all the time, but he could have chosen a better time to show me this side of him.

"A snake?" I said, starting to feel kind of concerned again. I could think of a reason why blood could be involved, what with magic and the likes, but a snake?

"You're not going to die. It's not going to hurt that bad. I promise." He put the goblet next to me. I could see there was dark liquid in it. Did this make me silent? "Drink it."

I looked at it, seeing the refection of my locket in the liquid.

It's not going to hurt that bad, I thought to myself sarcastically as I took a drink. There was a little whistle looking thing on one side and I wondered if they used that to force it into your mouth if you refused. How many women had been brought in here that had no idea what was even going on? At least I had had some time to adjust to the knowledge of goblins. But if I had been kidnapped that first night? I would have been a wreck.

I was thankful that he hadn't taken me right away. I had gotten some closure.

Wasn't this the beginning of Stockholm syndrome?

I put the cup down after swallowing, assuming that was enough to do the trick.

"I need your locket," he said, like it was an after thought.

I put my hand up to it protectively.

"You can't wear it during the ceremony." I didn't move, really unwilling to give it up. "I promise I'll gave it back to you."

I reached slowly behind my neck and undid the chain. I handed it to him, only because I knew that the would take it from me if I didn't give it to him.

"You can have it back right after," he said, a softer look coming onto his face. He put the locket into his pant's pocket and turned to leave.

"And if you don't want it to be gossip for years, don't make anyone drag you around. Have some dignity. It'll help."


	17. Wedding

I was seized by a horde of goblin women and ushered into the next room. Maybe if I had been born in a time and class where women had maidservants, I would have been more okay with the preparation. They stripped me of my dress. They stared at my underwear for a moment and I stared horrified at them for them all staring at me. I looked down at it. It wasn't anything bad. I thought they were cute. If I was getting kidnapped and married, I was going to wear my best underwear. Magrinta looked at me, then looked back to the women, saying something, and I was pretty sure she was talking shit about me.

I really liked the underwear I had on (they were floral and they matched), no matter how weird they thought they were. I hoped they wouldn't throw them away or something. It made me feel creepy that there would be other underwear that wasn't mine (not that I thought they'd give me used ones). If I could have taken any clothing article, it would have been my undergarments, I decided.

They put me in a huge tub and scrubbed me like I was a horse or a dirty pan. I was quite capable of cleaning myself. I had been handling it just fine for 18 years. They washed my hair with something that smelled strong. I hoped their hair was at all similar to mine, or my hair would be a wreck.

When they were done, they pulled me from the tub, wrapped me in towels, and sat me down on an uncomfortable stone couch. There they split up into tasks as such: combing my hair, rubbing oil into my skin, trimming my toenails, and polishing my fingernails. I felt like a poodle at a dog show.

I closed my eyes after a while, probably sitting there with an ugly look on my face, and tried to think of something else. When they were done attacking me with combs, I opened my eyes. They were all standing in a little mob at my feet, which made me kind of nervous. One of them handed Magrinta a little vial with black ink and a paintbrush.

She dipped the tip in, then started to write stuff on my skin. Starting above the elbow, she wrote letters down my arm until she hit my wrist. I tried to read it at first, then quickly realized it was in goblin (did goblins have different dialects and languages?). When she was done with that row, she took an oil and dotted several marks on my arm. Two of the letters faded. After a few seconds, they returned, this time gold. The goblin women seemed very excited about this, and I wondered if this was one of the tests.

They repeated this next on my left arm, then did a sequence of this on either arm. Each time, one or two of the letters faded then turned gold. I hoped that one of them would turn red or stay black, but no such luck. Satisfied with my results, two of them started to weave ribbons into my hair. I was not a fan of ribbons, but they did seem to be done up in many themselves, so I supposed this was goblin fashioned. I didn't really care what I looked like or wore; I just wanted it to be over with.

I thought this until they brought me my undergarments. I stared at them much as they had at me in mine. These were not even classified as underwear in my culture. Like probably only fundamentalist Mormons wore these kind of things. I kept my towel wrapped around me as they held out the white chemise. The knee-length shorts things I thought were called knickers, but my 19th century linguistics were a bit rusty.

If I could have spoken, which I didn't even try. I would have demanded my other underwear. I finally put them on, vowing that Marak and I were going to have a very serious conversation about clothing. I wasn't even wearing a bra- I needed support!

I realized the alternative when they brought out the dress. Sure, I had looked at corsets as a small child and thought they were pretty, but I knew the horrors and I had no illusion about their comfort. I guess it was something that I had thought reserved for one occasion: your wedding. But I was certainly not going to dress myself every day in a corset. The dress was strapless and left the portion of my shoulder blades bare.

I recognized the dress immediately as the dress I had been wearing in that dream. The realization hit me all the sudden. They had already prepared my dress that early? I had really been picked out like a grocery store picks out a fat pig at a local fair to butcher.

I found the entirety of goblin fashion to be bizarre, if this was going to be an accurate summation of their fashion choices. I kept my face neutral. I wasn't going to be offensive to them, especially when they all seemed to love it so much.

The jagged scar down my collarbone and chest was almost completely visible. I touched it self-consciously. I didn't like to put it on display, but what could I do? The goblin women had been touching it the whole time, but I hadn't had to look at it until just now.

Magrinta then ushered me towards the door on the other side of the chamber. I looked at my feet, wondering why I was barefoot. Goblins obviously wore shoes, and so did humans. If it had to do with the shackles, then why couldn't I wear socks? This I cared about until Magrinta opened the door to a tunnel.

I tried to take a deep breath to calm myself, but I decided that this ceremony better hurry up before I straight up fainted. There were two goblin men in gold armor appeared in the doorway, startling me. Each carried a short chain. I held up my hands a little bit, assuming that was what it was for. One of the goblin men touched either side of the chain to the gold shackles. I was pretty impressed that the chains simply attached to the sides, but that was magic I supposed. The other goblin attached the two to my feet, which made me feel awkward. I wondered how easy it would be to walk in them. Then they hesitated. I felt Magrinta push on my back, and I got the feeling that I was supposed to go then.

I paused at the end of the tunnel, letting my eyes have a second to adjust to the darkness of the next room. This was actually a cavern of some sort with an amphitheater. I was walking on black stone. There were two tables, each lit by its own set of torches.

Really? I thought to myself. All the magic in the world- they had enough magic to hold up an entire lake- and they were lighting this area with four insufficient torches?

Marak was standing about 20 feet away, wearing the same thing he always wore. It made me kind of mad that he hadn't been subjugated to the same kind of torture. He was also wearing a black cape, with gold lettering on it. I thought it was kind of a cross between Gothic and gaudy, but I reminded myself that I didn't make the fashion choices for goblins.

One of the guards tugged on my arms a little bit for me to resume walking. I didn't want to step out of my protective shadow, but I did, much to my chagrin as all the goblins started cheering. In front of me were four squares of sand. Each one had a letter on it. I stepped on the first one, and it shifted under my feet. I kept walking, starting to feel a little overwhelmed.

The guard guided me to the first table. There were several things on it, but all I really cared about were the three golden knives. Marak walked around to face me. As he did so, the guards unattached my wrist shackles and attached the bracelets to two brackets on the table. This left my hands palm-side up. With this, the crowd went quiet. I would have taken the cheering back in a second. Their nervousness was making me really nervous.

I calmed down a little bit when he picked up a paintbrush. Blood was obviously coming, but for now at least, paint. I wasn't expecting him to paint something on my forehead. I really hoped it would wash off, because I didn't want to walk around forever with that on my forehead. When he was done with that, he straightened out my hands and ran his thumb along the length of my hand. My panic level rose a notch when I realized that I couldn't move them. I would have calmed down from this if he hadn't picked up the knives.

This is the blood part, I guess, I thought as he raised the two knives. I looked away as he made a quick movement. The knives falling to the table started me more than the pain hurt. He pulled my hands free of the restraints, holding them palm-down over a bowl. I didn't want my hands cut again, so I didn't attempt to inhibit this.

Next to this bowl was another bowl of dark liquid. He then plunged my hands into that. This hurt considerably worse than them being cut in the first place, but when he pulled them out, the bleeding had stopped. He wrapped both of my wrists in cloth and put them back into the brackets. I tried not to curl them. He held up a knife again, and I just stared at it sadly, until he bared his own arm and made a line. His blood was a brown color instead of red, I noted, as it dripped into the first bowl with my blood.

Marak then reached for a small plate of powder, took a pinch, and threw it into the bowl. A big red cloud formed, which I found kind of morbid. When it faded away, there was what looked like pink cake frosting in the bowl. He took some and smeared it on my hands. The pain faded away. He studied the lines, which meant nothing to me, and yelled something out to the crowed. They stomped their feet and cheered.

I just really wanted the rest of this to be done. Between Kassidy and my uncle, and the goblin women and now this, I had had quite enough for one night. The guards took my wrists from the brackets and replaced the chain, at least until we got to the next table. Marak helped me to kneel on a cushion that was on the floor. On either side of me was a metal rod. They folded over to match the crook of my elbow.

Combined with this sacrificial position and the sword that I saw on the table, I came up pretty quickly with the conclusion that he was actually going to kill me. The whole thing had been a lie, and this was some barbaric goblin practice. Not enough that my uncle had ruined my life, I was now going to die. Great.

I watched Marak, feeling pretty pissed that he was actually going to kill me. A large golden plate sat on the table. He magically made a flame appear, a la Bunsen Burner. This wasn't large enough to actually concern me greatly like the sword did. Then he leaned down with a small bowl and a small pair of scissors. He cut off several of my fingernails, which I found most bizarre of anything they had done. Obviously the lines had had some significance, but this seemed totally random.

He took a clipping of his own fingernails, then fed them to the fire. Nothing happened, which I hoped was a good thing in my favor, but he continued with stopping and I realized they were still going to kill me. Then he cut off the lock of hair that the goblins hadn't included. He did the same too clippings of his own hair. He burned both of those as well.

When he came at me with a needle, I didn't try to fight him, just held my hand flat. He jabbed my finger with more force than I thought necessary. He forced several drops onto the plate. He did the same thing to himself. Then, with concentration, he let the blood drip onto the fire. The fire died, leaving a small pile of ash.

Once again, the crowd went silent. Last time they had done that, I had two cuts slashed into my hands. As he smeared the ash onto the sword, I was thrice nervous. At least I got to say goodbye to Frances and my dad, I thought.

I was a little taken back when the sword made a sound, like it had been struck against the table or something. This was a singing murderous sword? He picked up the sword and walked towards me with it. He raised it above his head, whirled it around, and brought it down. I felt the sword touch my neck as I closed my eyes. It slid around the back of my neck. When I opened my eyes, I was surprised to see a snake. I wasn't dead!

He had mentioned a snake, I thought. This one considered me, and I couldn't help but laugh. It seemed a little confused by this reaction, but I also couldn't read snake body language. It did a few more loops before deciding on a few loops around me neck. I wasn't expecting it to suddenly disappear into my skin like I had a tattoo.

The goblins started their yelling and stomping again. Marak helped me up and ushered me from the room. I collapsed onto the couch where he directed me. My head hurt after all of that commotion.

He took the shackles off of my wrists and handed me a cup. I took a drink.

"Most King's Wife's scream when a giant snake wraps around their neck," he remarked.

I touched my skin, but I couldn't feel anything. "I just thought you were going to kill me," I said "I'd rather have a snake tattoo thing than my head chopped off."

"I told you that I wasn't going to kill you," he said.

"You were very assuring, yes," I said sarcastically. "You have someone swing a sword at your head and we'll see how far your trust goes."

He shrugged. "You did fine, though. No screaming or crying or flailing about. The palace gossip will be surprisingly light."

"Not that I have any dignity left, now that half the goblin women have seen me naked," I said.

"I don't know what the women do," he said. "Do you want to sleep here or our bedroom? Most stay their first night here."

"I am surprisingly not sleepy," I said. I couldn't imagine why a couple of knives, a snake, and a sword would make someone awake.

We walked out of the room and up endless staircases. "What did you draw on my head?" I asked as we came to a wide staircase with gold steps.

"It's the King's Wife symbol. It tells all the iron doors leading out of the palace not to let you out," he said. I considered that I would never see the sunset over the Pacific Ocean again, nor go grocery shopping, or anything else that was intrinsically human. I felt homesick all the sudden, but I was sure that it would get even worse as it really hit me how much I had lost.

The gold staircase melted into a gold floor as we reached the top. The walls were decorated with geometric inlays that seemed Oriental. The side rails were all done in wrought-iron. "Is everything like like this?" I asked.

"The dwarfs love to build," he said. "They decorated a majority of the palace, if not just to allow them to do something. They always want to build, and we're running out of places to allow them to." I looked farther down the hallway. Square, glass-less windows lined one side of the hallway to my right. At the end of the doors was a set of large double doors. There was a guard on either side. "This is our floor," he said. "Royal rooms." He asked me if I wanted to see them, but I shook my head no. I really didn't want to broach the sex subject.

"Out here," he said, motioning to a balcony outside. There was a couch, but I was more interested in the view. It overlooked the whole valley. The whole thing was cast with a purple hue, which I didn't understand why. The twinkling lights of the city stretched out for miles, I was pretty sure.

"Come sit with me," he said, having retired to the couch between two windows. I reluctantly pulled away from the balcony to sit by him. I looked up to where he was faced. "It looks like a bowl, but it's the bottom of the lake. It really is hollow."

"I'm looking through water?" I said. This was not a safe thing, I was pretty sure.

"It's held up by magic, of course. It's been like that a long time, nothing to worry about. This is what the sunrise looks like from my kingdom. I thought you'd like it," he said.

I would have said something, but I was too entranced with the phenomenom. The purple had become a violet. I saw a dark silver circle in the sky. "That's the sun?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said as the violet became cobalt.

It eventually changed to a deep blue, bathing the whole valley in a twilight-like aspect. "Is it always like this?" I asked, referring to the color.

"Your eyes will adjust over time," he said, answering my question. I tried to think that I would miss the color of normal day, but I would be happy with the trade for some time.

"What's the deal with the snake I asked," I asked, almost in a whisper. Once I had sat down and relaxed, I realized that I was tired. The sun didn't rise until 8 AM. How had it been so long?

"It's not really a snake," he said, voice also low. "It's a powerful charm. It protects you from anything trying to hurt you. If someone attacked you, it would deliver a powerful bite, then report back to me and I would pass judgement on if they live or die. If you tried to harm yourself, it would bite you, as well."

"It talks?" I asked, thinking that sounded weird.

"It's not really a snake, like I said."

178I considered the snake around my neck. "I guess I always wanted a tattoo." I laid my head back on the couch, watching the sky.

"You're going to fall asleep," he said, and I realized he was watching me.

I shook my head. "No, I am not." I made myself sit up.

"What are you afraid of, Josephine?" he said.

Wasn't it obvious? I thought I could probably force myself to lie there, but the idea made me want to vomit.

"I'm not going to touch you unless you want me to," he said.

That was nice, I supposed, but that could only last so long. "But the heir," I said.

"Consummation isn't required for the heir to be born."

"Uh," I said, then shut my mouth. Of all the magic things, that wouldn't make sense at all. I didn't want to think about it. I didn't want to think about being pregnant at all. I had literally turned 18 just that day. I wanted to wait until after I was done with college and married- I would never go to college, or wear a red graduation cap to throw up into the air, or walk down the aisle with my dad, my brain told me.

I turned my face away from him as the homesickness hit me once again. Being sad about it did nothing at all, I told myself, but it was easier said than done.

"Let's go to bed," he said. He took my hand and stood up. I let him pull me up. We walked together silently across the golden floor. I avoided looking at the guards as we passed through the doors.

The bedroom was probably the size of the entire upper floor of the Lodge.

"I want my clothes back," I said, hoping he wouldn't push it. He raised an eyebrow, and I knew that he wasn't going to say anything until I did. "Do the women really still wear corsets? Because those haven't been in fashion for like 100 years."

"We're old fashioned," he said.

"I cannot wear a corset for the rest of my life," I said.

"What else would you wear then?" he said. He seemed very amused by my issues.

"I want my underwear back," I finally said. "This is not comfortable. And I'm not even wearing shoes." I didn't like being barefoot.

"I'll talk to Magrinta about it." He made it sound like he'd talk to her eventually. He sat down the edge of the bed and started to take off his shoes.

"Can you talk to her right now?" I said. "I can't sleep like this."

"I think you're just being dramatic and a bit homesick. You might as well get used to it, Josephine. The women make all of your clothes, and that's what they wear."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a time discrepancy between the when Josephine was originally brought underground and when the wedding takes place due to a new version of one of the chapters. I am aware of it, but the first part was already published.


	18. King's Wife Charm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first day underground.

The next morning, I didn't feel like getting out of bed. The memories of everything that happened the night before rushed me. Yesterday, I had been too caught up in the rush of everything to sit down and think about the consequences. For one, I wondered what they had done to my uncle and the others. I didn't know what goblins considered due punishment. There was no way that the goblins had killed them, right? Honestly, I was afraid to ask. Barring that they had survived, what would my uncle tell my father? Did he even know yet? It had only been a few hours, I told myself. Maybe he was still in London, blissfully unaware.

Would they say I ran away? Went missing? I weighed the options, unsure of what I would prefer my family to hear.

If they were told that I had ran away, they would be heart broken and confused, but they would have some hope of finding me alive and well one day. They would look for me in confidence that I was probably alive and would come back. If I just went missing, they would search for me with the assumption that I was probably dead. Maybe it was better for them if they were told that I was dead. The searching and mystery would only prolong their grieving. At least I knew that they were alive and doing fine.

There had already been so much pain in the family. The last conversation with Jensen weighed heavily on me. I could forgive him for it, but I doubted that he'd ever forgive himself for it. Frances would be torn up, upset that she had left me; the same with my father.

I continued this pointless worrying as Marak got up. He disappeared into a room after a while, leaving me in my thoughts. This internal monologue was going to get me no where, I finally told myself, and I didn't want to wallow in pity all day, even if I was allowed to. I pushed the duvet back and forced my self to sit up, putting my feet down on the floor. It was kind of like going to the gym, I reasoned with myself. If I didn't want to go to the gym, I just put on my clothes. I was much more likely to get up if I was out of the comforts of my warm blankets. Being awake and around distractions would be better psychologically than laying in bed all day, moping.

Marak came from the other room and stopped, like he was surprised to even see me up. He was pulling a cloak over his shoulders to tie around his neck. He was dressed in a dark purple suit that dated at least the 19th century, with the pants that only went right below the knees and a waist coat.

"You look nice," I said truthfully, deciding that I should say something. I had slept well that night, but the weight of everything made me feel sluggish. "Where are you going?" He was obviously going somewhere, since the only thing I had ever seen him wear, even at the wedding, was all functional and black.

"I have court this morning," he said.

The first thing that came to mind was the judicial system. I had been in court before, but that didn't make sense. I had read about English royals and the such being in court, but I wasn't really sure what that entailed. "Oh," was all I managed to say.

"Why don't you come with me?" he said.

I rubbed my face with my hands and thought about this for a moment. He looked hopeful. "Sure," I said before I could think it through. I didn't want to sit here and be miserable, but getting up was an awful lot of commitment. I didn't really want to be happy, either, since that felt like betrayal. I stood up and followed him into the other room, which ended up being a dressing room.

There had to be almost two dozen dresses in the closet. Normally I would have been excited to see new clothes, but this looked like a formidable task. I didn't have any way of judging what was good or bad in goblin fashions. I picked one out at random; I was rapidly losing my interest in even being out of bed. The dress was a gold color that matched the color of the snake. Maybe if I couldn't force myself to be happy, then this bright color would psychologically make me happier.

What I really needed were my antidepressants. I should have brought them along. There was only about two weeks worth of pills left, and I doubted there was a pharmacy here. Did it really matter if I cut it off now or in two weeks? It might have made the next two weeks a bit more bearable.

Once the dress was on, I came around to the mirror to see how it looked. It didn't look real to me, more like I was putting on a dress for a play or dress-up than actually getting dressed for the day. The neckline of the dress was cut in a fashion that left a lot of skin showing, relatively, around my neckline. I assumed this was for the snake. I had seen it melt into my skin, but I watched myself run my fingers over it in the mirror, still a little unbelieving that this thing could talk or move about in any way.

I combed my hair in the mirror, but it looked surprisingly fine. I wasn't wearing any make up, but I had never wore a large amount of it. I thought I looked kind of weird without mascara on, but for all the flamboyant goblin fashion, they apparently didn't wear make up.

Right before we left to go, I remembered. "Wait. Where is my locket?" I said. He pointed to a wooden box next to my side of the bed, which I went to and took it out.

I started to put it around my neck, but he stopped me. "The King's Wife can't wear necklaces," he said.

"What? Why?" I brought my hand down and looked at the locket.

"The King's Wife Charm."

I frowned down at my snake. "What am I supposed to do with it then?" I said. I must have been more emotional than I had thought, since the very thought of not wearing it was threatening to make me cry.

"Here," he said, crossing the room over to me. He took the locket from my hand and wrapped the tiny gold chain around my wrist, then did the clasp. The locket hung down from my wrist. I looked at it and decided that if I wanted not to cry, I wouldn't open it.

"Does that work?" he said softly. I was appreciative of him not being annoyed with me, even though it would serve him right if I was as annoying as possible forever.

"Yes." I stared at it for a moment. "Thank you."

He put an arm around my shoulder, resting his hand on my upper arm, and led me out of the bedroom.

The kingdom, I was coming to figure out, never got all that bright. There was a lot of artificial light created from magical and actual means to brighten the place up. I saw the valley briefly as we walked down the stairs and it looked like it had its own light, but even this kept the kingdom in an apparently perpetual twilight.

We went to breakfast first. The goblins seemed very excited to see me. I was surprised to see them, all at a long table. Breakfast in my experience was a protein bar or down-a-bowl-of-cereal kind of affair. Dinner, I could have seen being in a banquet hall, but breakfast?

I sat down in a smaller throne-like chair at the head of the table with Marak, next to his own. He piled food on my plate and I looked at it suspiciously. He put food on his own plate. It looked like meat and bread in some kind of sauce; nothing that looked vaguely breakfast-y to me. There were no forks or other eating utensils, so I watched him for a moment to see what he would do. He used the bread to pick up food and eat it.

I wasn't really that hungry, which was weird for me, considering that I hadn't eaten since Chinese food and cupcakes with my dad the night before. I blamed all of the goblins staring at me. Their eyes were mostly on my neckline, but it was nice to feel like people were staring at a giant snake tattoo and not my scar.

When we were done, Marak and I took a walk. I was relieved when we were finally just by ourselves. At first, his overtly-goblin looks had frightened me, but already I was comfortable with his looks. Some of the other goblins were a lot... worse. I could handle him, but I had a limited tolerance for all of the others at one time.

Once at court, I sat in his throne at his direction. His cape had weird symbols on the back and I wondered at the significance of it. I couldn't understand a word of anything that was being said, but I spent my time well entertained.

The goblin women wore elaborate dresses with ruffles and ribbons in their hair. In my culture, the boundaries of pretty were sometimes flexible, but they all relied on a general symmetrical, healthy look. Goblins weren't symmetrical on a whole, weirdly proportioned, and had random animal traits that didn't mirror over to the other side, like someone had copy-pasted on random things to a humanoid shape. The dwarfs looked like short humans in a more gypsy-like fashion sense than the goblins.

What was considered beautiful in a goblin world? Maybe my symmetricalness was disgusting to them. Did I really have the right to think them ugly when I was probably hideous to them? It would be rude to go to another country and call those people or their fashions ugly, so I guessed I should have the same courtesy for all of these creatures. I considered this, feeling like I had just re-altered a large part of my life view.

It started to bug me pretty quick that I couldn't understand anything. Marak had talked to most of the goblins in their tongue while I was around. How many of them even spoke English? Robelde and Magrinta spoke English, obviously. Did Loewen? The King's Wife was one tiny reason for an entire kingdom to learn to speak a language.

If I ever wanted to read a book, I was going to have to learn Goblin. Immersion was supposed to be the best way, they said.

Even though I was entertained, I was glad when Court finally ended. A small goblin came to stand next to me. He glanced at me before yelling something to the room. The entire court dipped into a bow.

I asked about lunch while we were walking.

"Goblins don't each lunch," he said.

"What do you mean, you don't each lunch?" I said.

"We only eat two meals a day. The goblin language doesn't even have a word for lunch," he said. "But if you're hungry, I can have something brought for you."

I shook my head. I wasn't hungry. My stomach still felt like it was in knots.

We entered into a large stone room that I was immediately fascinated by. There was an entire wall covered in a bookshelf, overflowing with books of all sizes. One side was all cabinets, while another was covered in an open shelves with glass jars, pottery dishes, and other assorted object. I took a seat on a tall stool, wanting to feel tall. There were herbs drying from hanging racks and different sized dishes and bowls on a work table next to me. Star charts were hung on the wall and things in a language that I didn't understand.

"Is this your work room?" I asked.

"Yes." He pulled out a book and put it on the desk that I was sitting by.

"Is this the only library?" Surely this could keep me busy for years.

"No," he said and laughed. "There is a much bigger one than this. All these books are for magic. Some of the books are in English, in the library." He looked up at me as I perked up. "For the pages that are learning English."

"There are books in English?" I asked, sure that it was too good to be true.

"I'll take you there tomorrow," he said.

"Why not today?" I asked, a bit disappointed. It couldn't be that far away.

"So it can be our project for tomorrow," he said simply.

I guess I could understand his reasoning. He had to have something to make me get out of bed.

While he worked on whatever it was that goblin kings had to magic, I explored the workroom, careful not to touch anything that I might break. I found a little mirror and I used it to look at my neck. The snake was almost completely golden, and its face rested right above the hem of my neckline.

"Would it really bite me if I did something foolish?" I said.

Marak looked up from his book and turned around to face me. "The King's Wife Charm is the most powerful piece of magic that the goblin race has. It does whatever it has to protect you. So, yes, if you tried to hurt yourself, it would bite you."

I considered this for a moment. "Do a lot of the King's Wife's try to hurt themselves?"

He nodded, looking serious. "Not all of them react the way you did. That's why I tried to give you time, so you could adjust. It doesn't always work out so nicely. But a lot of women react badly and do reckless things. The King's Wife Charm is well needed."


End file.
